


Until They Get A Better Plan

by orphan_account



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Band, Angst, Bandom - Freeform, Car Accidents, Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Meetings, Friendship/Love, Homelessness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Orphanage, Past Child Abuse, Underage Drinking, Underage Kissing, Unrequited Love, but the end is kinda fluffy bc it's christmas, maybe warnings for blood and swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-07 02:30:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5440139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What are you doing here?” the guy’s voice is soft, there’s a small puff of cold air curls from his mouth, and he rubs his shoulders, gazing down at Patrick. The teen feels like his ass slowly turns into an ice, but he doesn’t move, he isn’t looking for a company, and he doesn’t want to show a secret place where he’s planning to stay for a night today.</p><p>“Working,” Patrick shrugs and then suddenly starts coughing not in a good way; he really should buy a woolen scarf or warm parka. Or thermal underwear. Patrick mentally rolls his eyes; all what he has now is a huge hole in his non-existent budget, so he has to control his unrealizable (and expensive) dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until They Get A Better Plan

A well-dressed, elegant man throws a handful of cash into a black open guitarcase without even looking at the singer, and Patrick belatedly plasters a fake grateful smile on his face; honestly, he’s genuinely thankful, but he just has no strength to show his real feelings at the moment. He sings like three hours in a row, and he’s about to get his vocal chords disrupted. People are just passing by — Patrick’s innocent smile melts the hearts of some of them, some like his voice or his whole homeless look, and some even try to take a pity on him.

But talking is always a signal to shove his acoustic guitar into that guitarcase with Bowie sticker and scoot away.

Patrick doesn’t want to get remembered, and he changes his locations too often to be noticed in the town, at least, he thinks so. Also he thinks that for today his performance is over, the teen just gets ready to sing his last song — maybe, soon he will have enough money to buy some normal clothes in the second-hand. The weather is not friendly today, it’s rainy and a little snowy even, Patrick’s cold clumsy fingers almost freeze to the guitar strings, and sitting on the sidewalk is uncomfortable and wet.

Patrick sings until his lungs burn.

There is an unknown guy watches him from the periphery. Patrick’s hands are numb in these fingerless gloves, and the boy just hugs his guitar, catching his shaky breath after finishing the song.    

“What are you doing here?” the guy’s voice is soft, there’s a small puff of cold air curls from his mouth, and he rubs his shoulders, gazing down at Patrick. The teen feels like his ass slowly turns into an ice, but he doesn’t move, he isn’t looking for a company, and he doesn’t want to show a secret place where he’s planning to stay for a night today.

“Working,” Patrick shrugs and then suddenly starts coughing not in a good way; he really should buy a woolen scarf or warm parka. Or thermal underwear. Patrick mentally rolls his eyes; all what he has now is a huge hole in his non-existent budget, so he has to control his unrealizable (and expensive) dreams.

“Why?” this question wins an award in nomination ‘Stupidest Thing Ever’. Patrick huffs.

“Um, well… because I’m hungry, but without money I’m just nothing?” Patrick gives the stranger a skeptic glance, evaluating this guy: dark hair, emo-stylish, jeans a little-too-tight, Patrick has no clue how he can wear this, purple hoodie — Patrick even envies — his denim jacket is too thin and too ancient to keep warmth.

“I can buy you something, what do you think?” emo-playboy offers, sitting down next to Patrick, and oh shit — he’s so, so warm, it’s so fucking good. Patrick is on the stage of catching a violent cold, and he resists the urge to dig his fingertips into this guy’s fleece side.

“I think you’re annoying,” Patrick pulls his old guitarcase closer, grabs the money, shoving them into his pockets, and packs his guitar.

“I’m working in music store,” brunette informs, giving him a banknote from his wallet.

“Too much unnecessary facts,” taking his money, Patrick gets up lazily and takes his guitar and backpack, slightly shaking of chill wind or maybe his temperature just gets high.

“Your voice is just perfect,” this weirdo tries to flirt again.

“Thanks.”

Patrick walks away without saying ‘goodbye’ even if it’s impolitely; he is not obliged to be polite with everyone, and he doesn’t trust the men like this.

He knows what it feels like being pinned against the rough wall when someone’s thick trembling fingers play with the zipper on his jeans, he knows what it feels like bracing himself for another blow, being driven into a corner, he knows the most disgusting colours of the real world. Not all of the _blackest_ colours, but it’s all dark enough for fifteen-year-old orphan, who was lighted up with the idea of escaping from the orphanage and finally did it.

Patrick can’t say he’s great at making his homeless-career, and the only way he gets money is playing his father’s guitar and singing near the shops and cafes; Patrick wants to get a real job, he’s dreaming about family, and he’s wishing his parents were alive. He wishes he could get out of the filth like his friend from the orphanage — Joe Trohman — who is Joe Hurley now, he has all of it: mother-father-brother and good perspectives. Patrick knows where he lives now, he can find them and ask for a help, but he doesn’t want to be anyone’s problem. That holds him on the place.

To get adopted in thirteen is almost unreal, but Joe just got lucky, and Patrick is happy about him, really, his new parents did a lot for making Patrick’s (almost two years) existence in the orphanage more bearable until he’d left.

Being homeless is not romantic, but not all of it is so bad; sometimes, there are pleasantly hot nights when Patrick sits on the roofs of rusty garages and stares at the starry sky, feeling almost happy and free and childishly making wishes when he sees something bright what resembles a falling stars.

Today was not the best day in Patrick’s life, but he knows a place for a night — a garage with a hole in the metal wall, there is a lot of some stuff covers it from the inside; probably, the owner is too lazy to attach a fresh metal layer on it. It’s a warm and dry place, and occasionally Patrick comes and uses it for sleeping. He has to wake up very early not to meet the owner, who seems to be a nice guy, but anyway. No one likes when homeless touch your things, also, there is a car in the garage — Patrick sleeps, pressed between the wall and the hood, almost under the mountain of a different crap. Not the cutest picture ever.

He crawls into his favorite place and curls into a fetal position, it’s warmer this way; the teen rubs his cheeks with his woolen gloves, feeling it starts to sting, fine, it means he’s not so helplessly frozen. He falls asleep as soon as he gets himself a little warmer and calmer.

Patrick is grateful that he usually just passes out without having dreams.

 

***

His sleeping interrupts by a hard blow in his face.

Patrick opens his bleary eyes, expecting to see the owner of this nice garage who beats him up, but he notices just a rugby ball, lying an inch away from him. Patrick shudders as he sits up, leaning his back against the pile of trash; probably, the ball fell down from the top of it. The teen doesn’t know what time is it, but he decides it was the sign to go, and slowly searches for that ‘exit-hole’.

Patrick’s nose hurts as hell, and the boy just hopes it isn’t bleeding; he quickly checks the nostrils and looks at his fingers — no blood. He’s lucky.

When he drags his body, bag and guitarcase out of the garage, he sees the sun in the sky and stretches, getting ready to run and find a place where he will sing today. His throat is still sore from yesterday though.

“Hey dude!”

Patrick turns to the joyful voice and sees a guy with weird black but half-bleached hair and paper bag in his hands. The owner. Amazing.

The teen presses his guitar to his chest, thinking where it leads to.

“I kind of saw you last night near my house, you sneaked into my garage, but you didn’t drive out the car, so it’s okay, well…” he ruffles his already crazy hair, smiling at Patrick. “It’s not my car, actually, I just work at the auto repair service, so I have to create a miracle with this car, and you couldn’t start the engine anyway.”

“And?” Patrick cautiously kicks a small stone in the front yard with the toe of his dusty sneaker. This man in pajamas looks more comforting than angry.

“AND, here, take it,” he shoves the bag in Patrick’s hands. “It’s a sweater, my aunt always gives me them, I have six or seven, and uh, just take.”

Along with a black sweater in the bag Patrick notices a plastic box for microwave with a steak and green peas.

“Do you want me to eat it right now or I can bring the box later?” the teen frowns.

“As you want, it’s all yours. Even a fork,” the guy smiles. “I’m Jack!”

“Patrick…” he scratches the back of his head through his grey knit hat he’s always wearing. “But my Birthday is not today,” he smirks.

“But it’s just a good morning?” Jack winks.

“Oh yes. So, bye?”

“Bye,” Jack beams again, and the teen turns away, holding his and Jack’s bags in his hands, and the guitarcase hangs behind his back. “Patrick, dude, wait!”

“What?” Patrick stops and feels clouds of anxiety embrace his mind as Jack obviously wants to offer something.

“I was glad to help. If you need a place for a night, you know the address,” he jokes.

“Yeah, your garage is just like a five-star hotel,” Patrick answers in the same tone and hurries to a formerly white fence.

Not all the shades of a homeless life are ultra dark.

 

***

It’s much warmer in the sweater.

Patrick travels away from Jack’s house and Narnia-style garage, seriously planning to get back next week; these three nights he spends on the street or in the basements of buildings, trying to be unnoticeable — not all the people are as sweet as Jack.

In the supermarket, Patrick re-counts his cash, thinking what he can afford today; he chooses a huge pack of chips and a bottle of milk, 50/50 unhealthy and healthy food, Patrick shrugs and goes to the cashier. There is only one buyer in the line before him, that smiley emo-playboy he met a few days ago; he grins like they’re friends, and Patrick even winks at him. When Patrick takes his purchases, that dark-haired guy just waits outside the market, hugging his grocery bag to his chest with one hand, and his right hand shakes Patrick’s as the boy doesn’t know what to do.

He puts the food into his backpack, frowning at the stranger; walking everywhere with a guitarcase is pretty hard and dangerous, so all other things fit easily into a medium-size bag.

“I’m Pete, by the way,” the guy gives Patrick a Snickers bar, king-size, and the teen takes it, nodding.

“Thanks? Oh, I’m Patrick,” he feels his cheeks blushing, and the colour of his face is pretty similar to Pete’s crimson hoodie.

Patrick thinks he doesn’t have to call his real name, but it’s too late, and what else? He doesn’t think that Pete is interested in getting him back into the orphanage, and there are no people who could have printed Patrick’s face on the cartons of milk.

“Nice to meet you again, Patrick.”

This time, the teen really rolls his eyes. He’s sure next there’ll be an offer ‘go with me’, and Patrick just keeps silence.

“You have to be either with your parents at the dinner table or making out with your girlfriend,” Pete utters, and for Patrick it’s like a punch in the gut.

“My parents are on heaven, flying with angels, and my girlfriend is just a poster,” Patrick responds, putting as much sarcasm as possible in his answer, just enough to make Pete hurt.

“That’s sad,” Pete concludes. Patrick just snorts, thinking he has to hurry up if he still wants to sneak into that warm basement before other homeless dudes find it.

“Yeah, I’m sad, you’re sad, all our life is sad,” Patrick quickly shakes Pete’s hand again and tugs his grey beanie to his eyes, walking away.

Pete drills Patrick’s back with his stare, Patrick feels it, but it doesn’t matter.

The teen just roams the city, seeking out his new address for tonight, Patrick doesn’t want to get lost somewhere or stay on the street again. He’s been beaten up in this homeless life, thank you very much.

The basement is empty, no signs of anybody else, and Patrick occupies a place in the corner, near the hot water pipes. Patrick likes warmth, he makes plans how he’s going to survive the autumn — it’s just the end of the summer, but the nights and mornings are so damn cold, and Patrick crosses the line out of his comfort zone.

The teen doesn’t think he has no future, no, he’s not a freak, he just can’t lose his last hope to find good people, maybe a family, maybe get back into the school — normal school without those teachers from the orphanage. Patrick wants to educate with Joe and Joe’s new friends. The boy eats up the last chips and drinks some milk, feeling stupid about not buying something else. Then he remembers about the chocolate Pete gave him and decides as a good boy he deserves a dessert today.

Patrick likes chocolate. He eats only a quarter, because he doesn’t know when there’ll be another time he can taste it, so he just saves it for the hardest days.

He’s sure it won’t take too long.

After his light dinner, Patrick chews mint gum, dreaming about the house, about family, about dog and something sweet, only to push away the symptoms of a cold. He covers himself with his blue denim jacket and rests his head onto the backpack, carefully placing his hand on the guitarcase and protecting the most precious thing he owns.

 

***

“Dude, I feel like shit about that joke. I’m sorry about your parents and about your girlfriend, even if she’s only a poster,” Pete repents, following Patrick as he meets the homeless teen again.

“I don’t have a poster.”

“Much worse.”

The boy is not singing tonight, and Pete just bumped into him as he went out of the door of the music store.

“Let me buy you some coffee?” Pete guesses it’s even more stupid than ask a girl for a date or dance, what the hell — Patrick is a guy, and it’s obvious that he doesn’t like other dudes in that point. But he’s freezing, breathing into his palms, barely covered with fingerless gloves.

“Only coffee?” Patrick sighs ruefully. “Okay.”

Pete gives himself a mental slap on the face. Of course, this teen is hungry, and Pete leads him into a small café, ignoring the fact that Patrick blushes, fidgeting on the chair with his bag and guitarcase on his lap. Finally, Patrick puts his things on the floor and sticks his nose to a menu, but he promptly sets it aside.

“I don’t, um…” Patrick checks his obviously empty pockets.

“Don’t worry. Take it as a gift from me.”

Pete orders ragout for Patrick and a salad for himself, catching unconcealed happiness in Patrick’s (green? blue?) eyes as the waiter brings him a plate with hot, flavorful food. It’s strange, but then the waiter puts onto the table two cups of a fresh natural coffee, according to its smell, and says it’s on the house. Jesus, with his charm and innocence Patrick can get even into Pentagon secret lab let alone get free coffee.

But Patrick eats only a half of his meal and looks at the food guiltily.

“What’s wrong?” Pete notices the boy nervously bites his bottom lip, avoiding Pete’s eyes.

“I… I’m sorry, but… I can’t eat much, I don’t know, but my stomach is not really good,” Patrick tugs the sleeves of his sweater down to his palms. “Gastritis or something like that, I just… I don’t want to spend the night puking my guts out.”

 _Fuck._ Pete gets so sorry for the boy as he confesses he has some troubles that he wants to take him home and cuddle on the couch all the evening.

“You can take the food if you want,” Pete shrugs, but his heart races at Patrick’s weak smirk.

“It’d be nice,” Patrick is more alive than a second ago, and when Pete offers to call the waiter again, the teen just takes a plastic box out of his backpack and neatly fills the box up with the ragout.

Pete’s desire to hug this guy suddenly gets twice bigger.

He can’t even imagine this boy sleeping on the newspapers or on the cardboard in basement with other homeless people, with rats, stray cats and dogs.

When they are on the street again, standing under the lamppost, Patrick tries to adjust his guitarcase and bag on his shoulders. When the teen smiles, Pete realizes he’s too pure to live this kind of life, it’s so fucking unfair; he’s about to grab Patrick and drag him home.

It’s creepy.

“Thank you,” Patrick nods, and Pete just can’t tear his eyes away from Patrick’s reddish bangs, peeking out from underneath his beanie.

It doesn’t look stylish, teen’s hair is greasy a little, but it doesn’t make his look less angelic; waiting for the continuation of a conversation, Patrick nervously chews his thumb. Patrick’s hands look like he’s a surgeon, but not a homeless guy — hands with long, thin fingers with short clean nails, little veins on the backs of his hand, bony wrists and pretty big palms. Probably, it’s the rule of some ‘strolling musician community’. And he doesn’t smell bad for Pete.

“What?” Patrick crosses his arms over his chest, and Pete gulps down the urge to blurt out ‘go with me’.

“Do you have where to stay tonight?” he keeps scanning the boy with his gaze.

“Oh, um, yes!” Patrick looks relieved. “Really, thanks again. It was nice, and you are definitely not an asshole. Well, bye?”

“Bye…” Pete catches Patrick’s sweet habit of biting lips. “Just dude, stay safe. Promise me.” 

“I prooooomise,” Patrick smirks; Pete finds the guts and reaches his hands to hug him, but the teen misunderstands and just highfives him instead. Well.

Patrick high-spiritedly rushes away, and the darkness outside the lamppost swallows him.

Patrick doesn’t deserve being swallowed by the darkness.

After this meeting, Pete’s life doesn’t change, but he keeps thinking about that sassy homeless guy, and he finds himself bothering about this boy’s life; maybe, if they meet again, Pete will offer Patrick to sleep on the couch in the living room in his apartment. He said — he finds places to spend the night, but how the fuck he pays for it if he hasn’t enough money to buy normal food?

Without any good reason, Pete starts searching Patrick; knowingly, he goes down into the basements, even donates to the shelter just to clean his conscience. He stares at homeless men, trying to find his new almost-friend in grey beanie — there are dozens of beanies, even grey, but. No result.

 

***

A week later, on the way back home from a shitty Birthday party of the one of his friends, Pete on autopilot thinks he has to pay a bunch of his bills, thinks about new tricks to make himself sleep at night. It’s pretty chilly evening, and Pete trips over something, keeps walking automatically, but after a millisecond he recognizes it was a… black guitarcase with that David Bowie sticker? _No, please no._ Pete sees Patrick as soon as he woozily looks down at his feet; the boy lies on the pavement, in his so familiar knit hat and ugly baggy sweater with a hole on the elbow.

It seems like the boy is just sleeping, his cheek pressed to the dirty asphalt, but he is terribly pale, and when Pete crouches down next to him, he’s is not sure at first if Patrick is still breathing. The hurricane of soberness clears Pete’s brain, and Pete is just about to show all his skills of doing mouth-to-mouth.

“Shit,” Pete brushes the hair away from Patrick’s forehead; a pair of women passes by, laughing loudly.

No one gives a fuck about the homeless boy passed out on the street. The only one good thing is that no one has stolen Patrick’s backpack or guitar.

“Hey,” Pete shakes his shoulder gently, probably, he’s been lying like this pretty long time, and now he’s chilled to the bone.

After that one good shake Patrick lets out a groggy moan and lifelessly throws his head back when Pete carefully sits him up; he wants to press this teen to his chest, to put him into a hot bath, and make him a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows. Why the fuck does he think about it.

“You?..” Patrick’s unfocused eyes are half-open, but Pete sees no inner light in them, no ardor or even desire to live.

“Me. Patrick, what happened?” Pete asks persistently, snatching the front of Patrick’s sweater as semi-conscious kid almost collapses on the side again.

“I… I don’t remember,” Patrick anxiously adjusts his beanie. “Maybe, I got a little dizzy…”

“A little?! You fucking fainted, shit, you scared me!” Pete shouts without realizing it, and only when he registers the fear mixed with dust on Patrick’s face, he involuntarily calms down.

“I didn’t want to…” Patrick’s hoarse voice is an apologetic whisper. “I gotta go.”

He sways as he attempts to get up and awkwardly lands his butt back on the ground; Pete just wants to feed this teen and tuck all the blankets of the world on his bed. Patrick props his elbows on his knees and clutches his head, probably, waiting until his vision clears. He keeps convincing Pete he’s okay, but he’s shaking like he has a fever, and Pete just can’t let himself be an asshole, so he stands up, reaching out his hand so Patrick could get a grip and finally get up.

“It’s enough. I’m gonna take you to my place, and don’t even dare to say a word,” Pete lives just a few blocks away from that club he’d been in. He lives in old apartment building, but he isn’t sure if Patrick can overcome this distance.

Meanwhile, Patrick finally jerks his head like he feels a little better, his nearly blue lips turn pink again, and the kid takes his guitarcase from the ground.

“I don’t wanna be a problem,” Patrick still avoids Pete’s eyes, but he sounds really offended when Pete throws a battered strap of guitarcase over his shoulder and pretends he’s gonna take Patrick on his arms and carry him. Patrick wriggles with a little laughter like he wasn’t lying on the ground unconscious around ten minutes ago. Pete grabs his bag and sighs.

“You are not a problem, you are a gift from above, dude, seriously,” Pete stubbornly offers his shoulder so Patrick could lean to it, and Patrick stubbornly refuses. Pete gives up. “Okay, just warn, if you’re going to pass out again.”

After this, Patrick snorts ashamedly, his fake bravery pretty fast fades away.

“I’m not suffering from… faints. I don’t know how that happened, and, honestly, I’m scared,” Patrick confesses timidly. “I don’t wanna wake up next time and find myself somebody’s sex slave,” he makes a bitter joke, walking unhurriedly after Pete.

“I’m not that someone,” Pete assures.

“Anyway, I have a knife,” Patrick informs. “I can stab you.”

“But you can’t keep your tongue behind your teeth,” Pete teases, and the teen just smirks in response. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Fuck.”

This homeless boy is okay now, Pete guesses, and only the hungry growling in Patrick’s stomach forces him to come back to reality; probably, the teen hadn’t eaten for days — Pete loses his desire to continue their conversation, when Patrick rubs his belly, painfully grimacing. He’s not very skinny, but it’s just the matter of time.

In the kitchen in Pete’s apartment, when Pete places a plate of lasagna he bought in the market and heated in the microwave on the table in front of Patrick, he notices the teen’s face lights up as he takes a fork. Pete eats just to give Patrick a company, the food seems tasteless, but Patrick chews it with such a pleasure and healthy appetite, Pete can’t even imagine how sad this boy’s story is.

After the dinner (Patrick leaves a half of the lasagna on the plate again), Pete offers him to change his clothes, because Patrick doesn’t even take his knit hat off, and his sweater and jeans are dirty. Pete just wants to make this boy feel more comfortable, but Patrick suddenly hugs himself, glancing at Pete with fear in his dazed eyes, even if he tries not to show it.

“No, please… I’m fine, can I go?” Patrick looks like a small ruffled bird, huddling into a corner of the sofa, but Pete is sure the teen is going to protect himself in every single possible way, so he doesn’t want to give him reasons.

“I don’t know what you are thinking about, but seriously, I wanna burn this shit you’re wearing,” Pete explains, standing at the respectful distance.

“Some guy, his name was Jack, he gave me this sweater” Patrick shrugs, spiraling down back to a good mood. “It’s very scratchy, but warm.”

It’s Pete’s official turn to roll his eyes. In his twenty one, he remembers pretty well what being a teenager means, but when Pete was fifteen, he couldn’t even imagine he has a chance to live on the street, just because his parents were something eternal for him. Shit, he still thinks so.

“Guess what I wanna ask?” Pete changes the topic, and Patrick sighs heavily. “How long?”

“I live on the streets like three months, I have no calendar,” Patrick smiles like it’s the funniest thing ever. “Sometimes, kind people offer their help… But some creep, twice bigger than me, tried to get into my pants, it was maybe a week and a half ago, but you know, I still can’t forget. He punched me. Usually I don’t talk to strangers, but you are not a stranger, aren’t you?”

Excellent choice, Pete thinks bitterly. His friend is a strange homeless teen, he got beaten up, almost got raped, fainted in the middle of the street, and now he pours the bucket of his dark secrets straight onto Pete’s head. Patrick bites his lips, unsure what to say next.  

“You can use a knife,” Pete suggests.

“I don’t have a knife.”

Patrick looks around the living room, at the posters on the walls, distracting from his words; Pete has a bass-guitar and synthesizer, and Patrick’s acoustic guitar and his voice is what Pete needs for starting his music career.

But also he needs to know any other facts about his guest.

“Wanna tell me more?”

To hear ‘fuck off’ from Patrick would be fair.

Now Pete sits next to him, almost shoulder-to-shoulder, and Patrick answers the question blankly.

“I was eight when my parents died. Car crash. I was at school, I wasn’t in that damned car, I hate cars! At first, in the orphanage, it wasn’t so terrible, people were kind to me and other children, but three years ago those good old people had been fired…” Patrick’s voice is as sad as his speech, and Pete suddenly wants to call his own parents and tell them that they’re golden. “Our new supervisor and teachers don’t like kids, I guess. Like it’s our fucking fault that we’re taking their precious time. When I was thirteen, my friend Joe got adopted, and I lost the last reason to stay there. You know, he visited me with his adoptive parents.”

“And then?..”

“I tried to escape from the orphanage when I was fourteen, twice, but I was stupid and got caught. Since that I have scars, but no one gives a fuck, because I am a ‘troubled teenager’. The end,” depicting air quotes with his fingers, Patrick tiredly buries his face in his hands, leaning his back against the soft cushion.

“I swear, you’re safe here,” Pete’s heart clenches when Patrick stretches, raising his hands up, his sweater rides up along with the t-shirt underneath, and Pete’s eye catches a purple-black bruise on Patrick’s side, right above the waistband of the teen’s torn jeans.

Living on the street is hard.

“Aha,” Patrick huffs sarcastically.

“Dude, seriously. I can’t adopt you, but I can be your guardian, well, like you can live here if I prove that I’m capable to take care of you,” Pete is so inspired by this idea that he doesn’t even notice when he pulled Patrick into a tight hug.

“You are lying,” Patrick snorts, recoiling from Pete’s arms. “It won’t work. You don’t even want it.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic,” Pete winks at the teen, and Patrick just rolls his eyes irritably.

Leaving Patrick on the sofa — the boy watches an old action movie — Pete like a ninja crawls into the bedroom and calls home. He wants to share his crazy plan with his parents. Pete has had a lot of crazy plans in his past, so he assumes his current idea wouldn’t be a big surprise for his Mom and Dad.

Pete’s palms go all sweaty as he hears a familiar and favorite voice.

“Hello, Pete!”

“Hey, Dad. Can you give me some advice?..”

 

***

It takes two days of phone conversations with lawyers and convictions that Pete isn’t going to hurt Patrick, and there are no needs to get this boy back into the orphanage. But, of course, Pete should talk to the owners — Grace-couple; Mr. Grace bought this _building with children_ a few years ago — he wanted to take care of orphans and create comfortable living conditions for them. ‘His wife literally thinks she’s a local goddess of justice’ Patrick said.

The orphanage looks more like a three-storeyed prison, in Pete’s opinion; he parks his car, and Patrick obviously feels uncomfortable, shifting on the passenger seat nervously.

“I hate this place,” Patrick mutters, gazing at his shoes.

“I understand it, man,” Pete encourages, wrapping his arm around the boy’s shoulder.

“No, you don’t.”

As they walk inside the building, Patrick guides him through the maze of corridors to the brown door with a silver-green nameplate ‘Mrs. Grace. Supervisor’, and Patrick’s face suddenly goes as pale as when he fainted on the street.

“Let’s go,” Pete touches Patrick’s sharp elbow; the teen shudders, making Pete to forget all the good things he found during Google-searching about Mr. and Mrs. Grace. 

Patrick nods and opens the door gently, like he’s afraid of somebody in the office, who can shoot him with poisoned arrow.

Certainly, Mrs. Grace doesn’t look graceful. She looks more like Victoria’s mother from Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, to be honest. The woman sits at the table as Patrick enters the room, and Pete follows his friend hesitantly. When Mrs. Grace finally notices them, she gives them a glance over her thick-rimmed glasses and slowly gets up from her black-shiny leather armchair, like she’s doing them a favor.

“Um, hi…” Patrick starts, biting his lips and thrusting his hands into the pockets of the hoodie Pete gave him.

“I thought you were dead, Patrick,” Mrs. Grace utters as she moves closer, forcing Patrick to take a step backwards.

“We are here just to talk, okay?” Pete offers, and the woman throws at him a glance, full of sarcasm.

“Really? Do you really think I want to talk to _him_?” she points her finger with a long nail at Patrick. “This was your third attempt to escape. Correct?”

“Why not?” Patrick’s innocent question doesn’t get an answer; all what the teen gets is a hard and loud slap across his face.

“Shut up!” Mrs. Grace brings her hand up to hit him again, but Pete snatches her wrist, while Patrick turns away, pressing his palm to his cheek. “Don’t you dare touch me, young man!”

“Don’t you dare hit him!” Pete snaps back, almost chocking on his bubbling up anger. “Patrick?”

Patrick’s reddened cheek burns, it’s hot as Pete presses his fingertips to the sore spot. Boy’s face doesn’t express any feelings; he just tugs his grey hat down, avoiding anyone’s eyes.

“I’m fine,” Patrick suddenly raises his head up and gives Mrs. Grace a mocking smirk. “It’s all what you can do?”

“I hope you understand you deserve a punishment,” the woman crosses the room. “Thank you for bringing him back, mister.”

“He actually lives with me now,” Pete watches woman’s reaction; it seems Mrs. Grace just craves to hit Patrick again or whip him with his own belt. “C’mon, Trick, we’re leaving,” Pete clutches the strap of the bag on his shoulder, getting ready to speak.

“Do you want to kidnap him? Use him as a toy?” the supervisor of the orphanage huffs.

“Wanna be his guardian, and don’t say the shit like ‘you can’t’, I fucking can, and I’ve had a good consultation about a guardianship. Maybe, you want to see some papers I already have?” Pete’s sure it’s the best performance in his life; he doesn’t like to flaunt it, but, as a son of a highly qualified attorney, he knows some details and secrets about these cases.

Patrick stares at Pete like he’s a superhero. Pete places a thick paper folder on woman’s table and watches her reading the assignments and even articles Pete found to defend his and Patrick’s rights.

“It’s not enough,” Mrs. Grace smiles so sickeningly-sweet, that Pete wants to punch her.

But he just amiably returns the smile.

“Yes, of course. But it’s enough to take Patrick  _home_ until I can get other papers,” Pete tastes his victory, hearing Patrick’s heavy and sad sigh.

“Correct,” the woman signs the paper, closes the folder and gives it back to Pete. “You will regret about it. Patrick is a _very_ troubled teenager.”

Pete barely holds himself back from rolling his eyes in best Patrick’s manner.

“He’s an angel. Goodbye,” Pete turns away and lets Patrick lead him out of the office, through the strangely empty corridors into the wing where the kids live.

They meet a group of kids on their way, but Patrick doesn’t pay attention and only nods at the greeting of some random guy. Maybe, he was abused by some of them, Pete guesses. Patrick doesn’t talk about it. Luckily, the room doesn’t look like a prison cell; it has four beds with grey bedsheets and little tables beside.

“Where are the others?” Pete just wants to beat the silence in the room.

“Do you really care about it?” Patrick gives him a grumpy question instead of a witty answer.

“No.”

Patrick uses a key and opens one of the drawers, taking out only one big backpack; Pete’s pretty sure his jaw drops on the floor.

“What? My roommates are nice, but they can steal something. I’m not sure it’s all my things, but fuck it all. Anyway, I couldn’t take it when I tried to escape,” Patrick shrugs. “Let’s get out of here.”

Pete is about to use a teleport and disappear from this damned place, honestly.

The teen keeps silence all the way back home, and even when Pete offers to go to café, Patrick shakes his head and confesses he can’t eat while he’s that way nervous. 

In Pete’s (and Patrick’s) apartment they clean the bedroom so Patrick could live there; Pete throws all his clothes out of the wardrobe, and Patrick just laughs at his older friend and at his tight jeans and hoodie-collection. Patrick doesn’t have many clothes, but Pete guesses he and Patrick are almost the same size, so he offers to share the clothes. Patrick agrees, but clarifies he’s not going to wear Pete’s jeans, because ‘I’m not a model’. Bullshit. Patrick’s hips are adorable.

Patrick concludes he loves his new room with real, warm and soft bed, with pretty big windows and with Pete nearby.

Patrick is just the sweetest guy Pete has ever met; he is polite and shy, he has the greatest sense of humor, he plays his old guitar every day, and he can _sing_. Pete falls in love with his voice and the way he pronounces the words, the way he breathes during his singing, he’s in love with every thing in this little dude.

“It’s all gonna be okay,” Pete promises as Patrick sits beside him on his bed, reading a book.

“I know, Pete.”

 

***

Nothing is impossible if the desire is bigger than Everest — Pete metaphorically cuts the throats almost to everyone who opens their mouths to bark ‘Patrick would be much better in the orphanage’. In record time he gets all those stupid papers just to throw it on the table during their last visit to this horrible place. All the reports, including his volunteering in nursing home, donating for homeless animals and certificate from the psychiatrist. He can be a guardian by all the factors, despite the fact he’s just six years older than Patrick. Mrs. Grace looks at them like she’s gonna kill them, she purses her lips, says her ‘Fine’ and signs the final paper about the guardianship.

They celebrate the victory almost a week — they not just ‘live together’, they are a part of a social program, and Pete ‘takes responsibility for a child care’; these words sounded disgusting, slipping out of the lips of woman, who slapped Patrick just because he escaped from the orphanage. _Punishments._ She and her fucking husband were obsessed with those old-fashioned methods of keeping the discipline, and Pete still feels terrible about the other kids, honestly. Those defenders of children don’t give a damn about the real protection, and how it works; they can just grab money and ask for donating. At least, in that dark orphanage Patrick lived in.

Maybe that’s why they gave him Patrick so easily.

Patrick has a tiny scar on his eyebrow. Pete wants to believe it’s from falling onto the chunk of ice as Patrick explained him.

Then, Patrick finally talks to Joe, that good friend from the orphanage, and it turns out he and his adoptive parents really tried to find Patrick while he was homeless, and Joe is very glad that Patrick is even more okay than he had expected.

Patrick is excited about his new school — he’s enrolled in the same school as Joe, and Pete’s sure this duo will give some hell to all the teachers; it’s normal, Pete himself is a troublemaker all his life, but now he has to be a good influence on Patrick. He’s just six years older — again, he understands it pretty well.

The only thing Pete is forced to do — to give Patrick imaginary kicks, making this boy to clean his room before visits of annoying social workers. Pete is pretty sure that Patrick hates all of them, because one affectedly softhearted woman gave an order to take Patrick’s t-shirt off just to make sure that _the boy_ _is not exposed to domestic violence._

Pete didn’t know that Patrick has these thin scars on his shoulder blades.

 

***

When people from the orphanage/social cervices stop bothering them for a while, Pete and Patrick finally can breathe freely; Pete genuinely smiles at the customers in the music store, sells pretty expensive guitars and a lot of different accessories. Yes, he doesn’t look like a serious adult man, but Pete has some childish charm, and Patrick gives him life — when Pete takes Patrick at work with him, the teen’s verdict is: it’s a paradise. Something in Patrick’s words makes Pete to look at his life from the different point of view; this kid is totally right — Pete doesn’t waste his time as an office clerk after working his ass out in college. With Patrick, Pete is the luckiest one.

Even the weather is on their side — in early September the summer gives them the second chance; the sun shines non-stop again, and people on the streets are taking off their warm overcoats and sweaters.

Everything is so wonderful that Pete automatically starts waiting for another kick from the karma. He presents Patrick a new guitar, but Patrick still keeps playing his father’s one. It’s okay.

Of course, he doesn’t consider Patrick as a son, no — he’s more just like a roommate, soulmate and best friend.

A bright line on the black canvas of Pete Wentz’s life.

One day, Patrick comes home from school with a smeared red lipstick on his cheeks, chin and neck, not like ‘look what I’ve got’, more like ‘I can’t clean my face’. Forgetting his backpack in the corner of the living room, Patrick gives Pete a lustful smirk and locks himself in the bathroom for nearly hour and a half.

Pete is _not_ jealous.

Later, when Patrick is done with his Chemistry homework, and Pete finally finished typing his autobiography for a social workers and for people from the orphanage — the final step — guys sit on the floor in front of the TV, Patrick almost climbs up onto Pete’s lap, resting his head on his shoulder. They just cuddle like this before Pete decides to break this sleep-friendly silence.

“Today was a nice day, wasn’t it?” his finger traces to Patrick’s jaw, and then, suddenly, to boy’s lips. Pete only manages to feel a soft, warm, a little wet skin, and Patrick ducks his head, losing the contact and leaving Pete very embarrassed.

“Yeah, I fortuitously stumbled into a girls’ locker-room. They all were seniors,” Patrick keeps his voice low as he shares his best secret with Pete. “I like school.”

Pete huffs, remembering his own ‘adventures’ in locker-rooms when he was a sophomore, junior and senior — it was pretty hot — he knows what it means for a teenage boy, who only starts living a normal life again. Patrick has a right to entertain himself in his free time; Pete convinces himself that he should be happy that girls already like Patrick as much as Pete likes him. Fuck, he can’t admit it, he can’t, he can’t! They can’t even be safe, and scaring Patrick with his feelings would be just terrible. They’ve had enough misunderstandings between them.

Pete can destroy every-fucking-thing with his ‘love’.

“Are you going anywhere tonight?” Pete enquires cautiously, not to let Patrick think he’s a prisoner in his new home.

“Why? I have a test tomorrow, and I’d like to go to sleep a bit earlier,” Patrick shrugs carelessly, and Pete just hugs him tighter. Patrick doesn’t mind. “But Joe throws a party at Thursday…”

“Have fun,” Pete blurts out.

“So sweet,” Patrick laughs cheerfully; his eyes gleam with sparkles of joy, and it’s so cute, that Pete catches Patrick’s mood and beams at his friend.

Pete is grateful for the evenings like this.

 

***

Patrick doesn’t like parties: too much noisy people, too much shitty alcohol; noticing Patrick’s light discouragement, Joe leads him out of the house, and the boys choose the front porch as their new personal location. Since his second beer, Patrick feels kind of weird, and the smell of Joe’s cigarette makes him feel way too weirder; Patrick likes the smoke he breathes in, but he doesn’t want to try, it’s all bad for his vocal chords and lungs.

Joe can blow smoke rings, and Patrick just watches a faint grey haze, it dissolves in the fresh night air. They have a half-empty bottle without a label on it; Patrick heard a word ‘lightweight’, but he hasn’t ever thought it accurately fits to his current state.

He’s such a lightweight, Alex said. Okay, Patrick just needs to drink a little more to perform his speech, so he gulps down a liquid, he doesn’t even know how to call it, maybe, some sort of wine.

Joe’s brother /Andy/ will kick their asses if he’ll know about it.

Patrick leans to Joe’s shoulder, unable to keep balance as the alcohol hits a black hole in his brain. Now Joe calls his friend ‘Patrick Wentz’, and it sounds somewhat sweet. It all seems too funny now, maybe, Patrick had to eat at least some cheese before drinking so hard, but he just wasn’t hungry.

“I think I fell in love,” Patrick utters; his tongue refuses to deal with these words.

“What do you mean?” Joe throws a cigarette butt over the railings. Patrick pretends he’s getting offended.

“Pete. I like him, this morning I jerked off thinking of him, is this wrong?” Patrick coughs miserably, wishing he could take his words back; he planned to say only the first part of the sentence, but accidentally he blabbed another secret.

“Fuck, Patrick! There are no needs to report about all the shit you’re doing!” Joe almost shouts, but he starts laughing at the blush on Patrick’s cheeks. 

“You’re my friend, aren’t you? So, is this wrong?” Patrick sighs woozily, now he can’t deal with his stupid curiosity.

“You have always been strange,” curly-haired boy shrugs.

“Thank you.”

Patrick closes his eyes for a second, hearing Joe’s voice from above.

“Dude, for you the party is over,” Joe smirks. “Alex is going to take somebody for a company; you’re living near him, um?”

Joe’s parents will be home tomorrow morning, but Patrick doesn’t want to be someone’s problem, and he misses Pete, even though he feels pretty bad about going home drunk.

“Is Alex sober?” Patrick inquires worriedly; he’s about to fall asleep right now and right here, forcing himself to stay barely awake.

“Comparing to you — yes,” Joe responds.

“Oh, cool,” Patrick relaxes a little. “I’m going.”

Patrick is unreasonably proud of himself when he manages to get up without falling, but Joe grabs him by the shoulders, and both boys lean to the wall of the house.

“ _We_ are going. But if you need to puke, better do it now or Alex will kill as both,” Joe warns.

Patrick listens to his sensations and makes a conclusion he’s pretty fine at the moment, everything is just spinning too fast for his slow-motioned brain. Probably, he will need to throw up soon.

“You don’t have to be my bodyguard, stay home…” the sounds of music are not so loud, and the fog in Patrick’s head dissipates a bit.

“Dude, I just want to be sure you’re safe,” Joe slams his palm against Patrick’s back, and the teen giggles.

“Fuck you, Trohman! I’ve been living on the street, how the fuck can I be unsafe now?!”

“Calm down, Stump,” Joe curls a corner of his mouth into a smile. “But if you ruin the leather…”

Patrick friendly flips his annoying companion off and hobbles to Alex’s car.

 

***

Late at night Pete finishes the second page of his brand new manuscript called ‘How To Explain Patrick He’s An Asshole’ when he hears chaotic knocking at the door; very stupid, given the fact that Pete has a doorbell. He is full of hope that it’s Patrick behind the door, and finally now Pete can splash his anger out on him, really, this teenager’s manner of behavior is pretty insolent. He doesn’t even pick the phone, and Pete is too fucking nervous about Patrick could get his ass kicked somewhere in the darkest corner of the street.

But then he sadly realizes that they will be able to talk only at morning, because Patrick is drunk, no, he’s completely sozzled, and he falls on Pete’s arms as soon as the older guy opens the door. All the attempts to stand Patrick upright are in vain, and he ends up on his knees and hands on the floor in the center of the hallway.

Pete wonders how Patrick could get home in this condition, and he stinks like beer and cheap port wine, so, planning to haul the kid into the bathroom, Pete hunches over Patrick’s side. He loses just a couple seconds; Patrick predictably lurches forward and vomits on fluffy carpet and partly on his own jeans.

“Shit, stop…” Pete winces in disgust as Patrick heaves up a handful of alcohol. “Why couldn’t you just hold it in?!”

“I t-tried,” Patrick slurs and helplessly clamps his palm over his mouth as Pete picks him under the armpits and with a great difficulty leads him to the bathroom. Patrick doesn’t even walk properly, dragging his feet against the wooden floor and slumping as deadweight beside the toilet.

He looks pitiful, spitting the contents of his mostly empty stomach into the toilet bowl, and it’s the first time in Pete’s life when he really cares about the person, who is getting sick right in front of him. He even wants to rub Patrick’s sweaty back or hold him by the shoulders — the kid barely keeps himself in sitting position — but leaves this best-friends gesture to himself, just making sure that Patrick isn’t going to choke on his own vomit. 

And also now Pete has to clean the carpet instead of sleeping.

Suddenly, Patrick stops retching, screws his eyes shut and rests his cheek on the lid of the toilet’s seat. At first, Pete wants to leave him like this, on the bathroom floor and in stained clothes, just to teach him a lesson, but the strong twinge of guilt doesn’t let him to do this. This boy doesn’t deserve it.

“Hey, dude,” Pete tries to bring Patrick’s unconscious body back to senses. Patrick just huffs when Pete bothers his peaceful sleep, shaking him again. With a loud sigh, Pete flushes the toilet and these sounds make Patrick to stir, but in general he doesn’t pay much attention on the external stimulus.

Pete recalls the hours at the gym and lifts his wasted friend up, wrapping his arms around Patrick’s middle; he’s grateful his bathroom is small, and the bathtub is only a three steps away. After a few minutes and indistinct ‘ouch’ from Patrick, Pete finally manages to put Patrick into the bathtub, turns cold water on and directs the shower with pulsating jets straight on Patrick’s head. The water quickly soaks through teenager’s knit hat, and his hair sticks to his forehead, Patrick lazily rubs his jaw and gives Pete almost focused glance. Pete keeps pouring the water on him for good measure until Patrick whines something like ‘m’freezing’ with his teeth chattering rhythmically.

Pete adds some hot water only not to give Patrick pneumonia. He shifts in the bathtub still fully clothed, taking a shower even with his shoes on, and Pete smirks at how childish Patrick can be.

“I think I need to get undressed,” Patrick mumbles, pulling his wet hat off and gazing at Pete like he can’t understand what’s going on.

Pete can’t hold back his laughter at Patrick’s intonation. 

“And brush your teeth, man,” Pete recommends. “I hope you are not going to drown here. I’m just gonna bring you some clothes and go to clean your puke in the hallway.”

Patrick nods moodily, fighting with the slippery button on his jeans as Pete with a speed of light runs to Patrick’s room and grabs first available t-shirt and underwear from the wardrobe. When he walks into the bathroom again, Patrick stands on the floor, holding his jeans in his hands, unsure what to do next. Pete moans in his head, but he just says that Patrick can leave his things piled in the bathtub after he’s done with shower. Anyway, there are puddles of water all over the floor where Patrick dropped his beanie, sneakers and socks.

The teen frowns and shakes his head as a dog, and Pete smiles a little as the small drops of water fall on him.

“I’m sorry,” Patrick whispers still drunkenly, sitting on the edge of a bathtub and sheepishly tugging down his shirt to cover his briefs. Pete’s glance glued to the teen’s pale bruised legs, little scars on his thighs and scrapes on his knees.

Pete’s heart painfully clenches, and he just hugs him, ignoring his wet t-shirt presses against his own. Patrick sighs, but relaxes a little, sliding his feet on the water on the tiles.

“It’s okay, this happens, Trick. Take a shower, go to sleep, we can talk tomorrow.”

“Pete, I love you,” the teen keeps his voice low, confessing, and Pete just can’t stand the flash of sincere sadness in Patrick’s eyes.

“Yeah, buddy. Love you too.”

He helps Patrick get into the tub again — he’s sober enough not to hurt himself, so Pete leaves the bathroom and goes to scrub a little dried contents of Patrick’s poor stomach off his pretty expensive carpet.

By the time Pete finishes his unplanned mopping, Patrick sleeps on the couch in the living room, face down the cushion; Pete brings the blanket from Patrick’s room and covers his /best/ friend. That’s the meaning of ‘taking care of a child’, Pete thinks bitterly.   

Then Pete decides a cup of coffee would be great right now, because he just can’t sleep tonight.

 

***

Patrick wakes up with the strong suspicion he has to pack his bags and get out of Pete’s sweet apartment. Because Pete always was so nice and friendly, and Patrick was just an idiot; his stomach in knots — probably, his gastritis played a bad trick on him again. Patrick sighs and tries to sit up, but throbbing headache stabs his temples, and the boy falls back onto the pillow, moaning.

“Hey, sleepyhead. I guess, you aren’t going to school?” Pete nestled on the couch where Patrick lies, and the teen covers his blushing face with the blanket. He doesn’t have a time to hide himself, and Pete rises up the blanket, ignoring the fact that Patrick desperately tries to be invisible under it.

He closes his eyes and feels Pete carefully strokes his cheek.

“Please, don’t kick me out, Pete, I swear it was the first and last time, please…” Patrick begs, getting up slowly and waiting until the wave of dizziness stops shaking his insides.

“Dude, chill. I’m just gonna give you advice how to avoid a hangover. For the future, you know,” Pete smirks as Patrick flops down onto the couch again. “I thought you got an alcohol poisoning.”

“I can still stay here?” Patrick can’t believe his friend’s words, ignoring his ‘poisoning’. “I don’t remember much, but I’m so, so sorry…”

“Relax, I did worse things in your age,” Pete says. “You look shitty.”

“I feel the same way.”

“Of course,” Pete looks at the wall clock. “Gotta go to work, just lie here, okay?”

Pete acts like nothing happened, and Patrick wants to do something good in return, because really, his behavior was hideous.

When Pete leaves, Patrick takes a quick shower; after, he feels almost awesome, and he gets an idea what to do for his guardian. Pete likes pizza, he orders it almost every evening; it’s nice, Patrick guesses he can cook it if he finds ingredients in Pete’s fridge. Patrick scratches his chin, looking for something he can use as toppings; ham, olives, pickles, tomato paste and cheese. Perfect.

Probably, Pete likes pizza so much, that he even has parts of toppings for it.

Inspired by his sudden love and good mood, Patrick finds some flour and starts to improvise. It’s funny, it smells good, and Patrick feels like he’s the savior of these poor, almost expired groceries, maybe, Pete will like the food Patrick is trying to cook so diligently.

Patrick doesn’t know if he can call Pete his family — it’s too odd to be true; he haven’t met Wentz’s parents, and he’s very nervous about it. They are always busy, Pete talks to them only on the phone; maybe, they will go and meet them soon, and they might think ‘this orphan’ is a trouble. Patrick almost forgets to put a pizza topping as these thoughts overwhelm him; he shakes his head not to think about it, but he misses his parents so bad, and he has only one old photo, but can’t even look at it.

Salt burns Patrick’s eyes, but he forces himself to concentrate on grating the cheese, because he doesn’t want to cut himself, it would be too much for him; yesterday’s evening was rough, Patrick isn’t going to ruin Pete’s perfect life.

He just wants to make this delicious pizza and apologize.

Patrick stands near the oven, kitchen glove on his hand, but someone grabs his shoulders from behind; the teen jumps up and turns around only to see Pete with a beaming smile on his face.

“I thought you’re at work,” Patrick stammers; he has to check out his pizza, but Pete keeps hugging him, and the teen feels slightly dizzy again — stupid hangover.

And the best hug ever.

“Couldn’t leave you alone. Mikey will cover me,” Pete explains. Patrick is pretty sure it’s time to pull the food out of the oven right now, so he carefully asks for it.

Patrick takes a round plate with hot pizza, it looks very appetizing, the aroma is just wonderful, sneaking all over the kitchen, and that cheese look like small drops of gold on the red pieces of ham and juicy black olives. Patrick didn’t expect he’s really able to create this culinary work of art.

“Wow,” Patrick puts the plate on the table and searches for a knife.

“Dude, it’s amazing,” Pete exclaims as he takes his first slice. “How did you learn to cook?”

“Intuition,” Patrick shrugs; his mother was good at cooking, the boy thinks he just inherited this skill from her along with an ear for music from his father who sang him lullabies.

Pete’s eyes gleam with happiness, and Patrick decides next time he will bake a cake. Really, it somewhat helped him to calm his nerves, and Patrick’s memories about all the shit he’d been going through stop being so sharp, cooking is much better than therapies and /or/ his failed attempt of letting this feelings out through the self-harm. 

“Trick, I have a recipe-book, wanna read it?” suddenly Pete blurts out, stealing another slice.

Patrick swallows a mouthful of pizza and chuckles at Pete’s pleading tone. There are tiny wrinkles around his eyes when the guy smiles, and Patrick finds himself hypnotized.

“Yeah, of course,” the teen grins as he finally understands that Pete isn’t going to kick him out back on the street.

Patrick wishes he could tell Pete about everything what bothers his soul, but it’s so stupid, and probably, Pete thinks he’s just a baby. Loving a boy isn’t right.

In his room Patrick even grabs a pen and writes a letter, but when he finishes the words _‘thank you for everything’_ and _‘I love you, Pete’_ he realizes it looks more like a suicide note, and it’s creepy, Patrick just can’t write something heart-warming and romantic. Their probable relationship would be great only for those social workers who are searching for a reason to shove Patrick back into the orphanage he hates so much. He’s scared of it, and the teen grips onto his new life as hard as he can.

Patrick tried to drown his feelings in alcohol as the adults do, and now he still has no result, except for dulling headache and the remains of that hangover-sickness.

He has to get a better plan, but Patrick is so confused, that all what he can do is cooking.

He sets his alarm clock early and before school makes coffee for Pete — he drinks it, looking satisfied; when Pete comes back home after work, Patrick opens the door, and, he usually all covered in flour, because he experiments at kitchen. Yes, he reads that recipe-book. No, he isn’t trying to seduce Pete. He just wants to get more attention. Wants to be normal.

He doesn’t have nightmares about his parents’ death or about the orphanage anymore; now Patrick gets nightmares where Pete kicks him out and calls him useless.

Patrick is not useless.

He can be a friend.

At least.

 

***

Apparently, dating a colleague is not the best idea ever, so, sitting on the couch in the living room with skinny, visibly bored guy on his lap, Pete feels stupid instead of horny. It’s Mikey, younger brother of Pete’s boss, and he’s here not because he’s a blonde who likes wearing knit hats. No, Pete isn’t trying to distract himself from Patrick, just because Patrick is EVERYWHERE in this apartment, and any distraction is IMPOSSIBLE.

Patrick cooked pizza for him, and it was the best pizza in Pete’s full-of-pizza life. And pancakes. And ramen. Patrick is too perfect to be underestimated.

Maybe, someday Pete will be able to see Patrick without wanting to squeeze him in a hug and hold him like that for ages.

At the moment, teenager hangs out with his friends somewhere, he just texted ‘I’ll be late’; maybe he’s got a girlfriend and spends his free time with her. But Patrick doesn’t talk about girls from his school anymore, and probably, if he had a girlfriend, he would’ve boasted.

So, Pete has Mikey as his potential boyfriend, it’s uncomfortable, because he’s much taller than Patrick, but Pete kisses him just to forget about Patrick’s lips he has never kissed. And never will.

“Are you going to do something?” Mikey’s breathing becomes sexier as Pete’s hand sneaks under the hem of his shirt.

“Maybe,” Pete grits his teeth, undoing Mikey’s belt; they don’t have a chance to change their positions, when they hear a sound of a key inserting into a lock in the hallway.

“Pete, I’m home!” Patrick exclaims cheerfully as he turns the light on and rushes into the living room. “Pete, fuck, my eyes, I’m blind!”

Mikey wordlessly crawls off Pete’s lap, grabs his glasses and coat from the couch, wiping his mouth on his sleeve; he just mutters ‘sorry’ and sprints up to the door, nearly bumping into angry Patrick on his way.

Pete wants to erase this evening out from his memory.

“It wasn’t…”

“Oh, Pete, it was,” Patrick replies mockingly. “I want to stay for a night at Joe’s. Drive me or I call a taxi.”

Patrick turns away, and Pete just runs after him, explaining what he doesn’t even understand; he can’t confess that he really likes Patrick, because it means that Pete has all the bad chances to get arrested if he only lays a finger on this teen.

He doesn’t want to fight, but he just can’t ask what if Patrick is just jealous. The jokes are over. They’ve never talked about Pete’s sexual orientation, and he doesn’t even plan coming-out for his parents, and fuck. If Pete was with a hot girl in his living room, it would be much better. Now Patrick considers him as a freak.

In the car, Pete still hopes he can calm Patrick down.  

“Joe lives on the other side of town!” Pete enlightens like Patrick doesn’t know where his friend lives.

“I don’t give a fuck. Drive,” Patrick orders, buckling up the seatbelt.

Pete reluctantly starts the engine.

It’s depressing silence in the car, Pete drives maybe too fast, but what the fuck — it’s almost midnight, all the road is at their disposal; Pete turns to Patrick and opens his mouth to explain that he does have a specific private life, and Patrick will understand it later.

“I should have warned you,” Pete mumbles, regretting that he can’t refuse when Patrick gives him orders.

“Watch the road! Pete!” Patrick yells, and in his trance Pete realizes he can hear the roaring sound of engine — it’s the other car nearby, dangerously close, but Pete’s mind can’t focus on it. “Fuck!”

Pete is just paralyzed; he grips the steering wheel, unable to tear his eyes away from the massive truck, rushing at them. He sees only the queasily-bright headlights, closer and closer, like huge eyes of a wild animal, but Pete can’t control his numb body. Patrick screams something incoherent, it all takes only a second: the teen in a flash unbuckles his seatbelt and nearly falls to Pete’s side like he tries to push him off the driver’s seat. Pete feels Patrick’s sweaty palms on the backs of his shaking hands as the boy grabs the steering wheel and with a jerk turns it to the left, drifting the car. Then, there is a cacophony of crashing metal, Patrick’s hysterical cry, and a cobweb of cracks on the windshield; Pete hits his forehead against the wheel and then onto the door, nearly passing out but stepping onto the brake pedal. When Pete realizes they are out of the track and they got stuck almost in the wood, with his peripheral vision he catches only the smashed hood, passenger seat is completely disfigured along with whole right side of the car, and Pete’s fading consciousness only registers Patrick’s body next to him.

The truck is nowhere to be found.

 

***

Getting a hit with the airbag, Pete opens his eyes, he doesn’t remember being unconscious; probably, it was just a minute or two. He turns his head only to see Patrick: the teen is half-sitting in an unnatural position as he was thrown with the force of blow; he slumped his temple against the instrument panel — Pete mostly sees the boy’s back, and it scares him as fuck.

“Oh God. Trick?” he croaks out, unbuckling the seatbelt, which was holding him on the place.

In the most horrifying way, he doesn’t get a response. He has to call 911, but he forgot his cellphone at home; Patrick has a phone, Pete’s sure, that stupid phone which Patrick hates so much and always misses the calls. He’s too lazy to turn the volume on.

“Trick?” Pete asks louder; he waits a second, of course, Patrick is about to wake up, and then he’ll shake his head and blurt out something what can say only Patrick Stump. Like it’s just a bad joke and Trick is just being Trick.

Pete’s forehead hurts, but his heart is just dead, refusing to pump the blood in his system. Patrick doesn’t wake up.

That fucking ‘Trick:)’ in Pete’s contacts, that fucking Trick who saved Pete’s worthless life, and who doesn’t react on Pete’s poking and shaking.

That fucking Trick.

Pete’s fucking best friend.

If Patrick has the phone, he saves them again.

Pete reaches his hand and presses the pads of his fingers to Patrick’s carotid artery — success. Teen’s heart is beating, and Pete mentally celebrates the small victory.

He tries to open the car’s door — success. Swaying, Pete gets out, and then, like he’s working with the most fragile sculpture made of sand, he slowly drags Patrick out of the crashed, ugly car, which looks like a pile of mangled metal.

He drags Patrick out, lays him on the ground by the roadside and kneels beside him. He’s ready to stand on his knees not for a God, but for a teenage boy, who is a smart superhero. He deserves these prayers. If only it could get him back to senses. Pete checks the situation out — Patrick has the cellphone in the pocket of his jeans, along with the keys and guitar picks he used to carry just in case.

Pete dials 911, he’s afraid of his own voice as he blankly explains to the operator what happened. He gives the landmarks even. If _his Trick_ is still here, Pete has to save this desperate teen’s life. To save his _Patrick_ who always hisses out that he hates this Trick-nickname, but secretly loves it.

Fifteen years is not fucking enough.

Pete sits on the ground, holding Patrick’s head and shoulders on his lap in some non-romantic way; left side of Patrick’s knit hat goes wet, soaking with blood, but Pete can’t bring himself to look at the damage closer as the storm of regret tears his chest apart.

He can’t even recognize Patrick’s painfully light moan at first.

“I… I’m…” the teen coughs spasmodically, his body shudders in Pete’s trembling arms.

At the backwards of his mind, Pete knows it causes Patrick a terrible pain, but he grabs his shoulders and tugs the boy upwards, so his face almost presses to Pete’s chest. Patrick groans again, and Pete counts the minutes until the ambulance arrives.

“Sh, don’t say anything, please, Trick, just nod, okay? Can you feel your body?”

For Pete’s happiness, Patrick nods.

“Okay, great, maybe, can you move your legs for me? Only if you can, please?”

Patrick shifts a little, slightly bending his knees, and gulps down something which Pete hopes is not a blood. 

“C-can’t feel my arm,” Patrick whispers brokenly, and one single tear rolls down from his eye, but the teen quickly wipes it with his good /left/ hand.

Stubborn as always.

“You have just got a hit, but it’s all gonna be okay,” Pete soothes, unable to ignore his palm goes red and sticky as he touches Patrick’s head, hearing him whimpering. “Fuck.”

“Am I bleeding?!” Patrick promptly begins to panic, his Adam’s apple jerks up and down under his abnormally pale skin, and if injured kid is going to throw up, Pete doesn’t know what he supposed to do. He knows what to do with drunk Patrick, but obviously concussed Patrick is something new, what he’d prefer not to deal with.

It’s Pete’s fucking fault.

They’re freezing.

Pete swallows down his own tears only to stay strong for his younger friend, but this dark wet spot on the side of Patrick’s beanie can’t lie. Pete carefully takes Patrick’s hat off — it clings to his reddish tousled hair — just to see a nasty-looking wound, lazily leaking with warm red liquid, trickling down to his temple and on his neck. Pete presses already ruined knit hat to the injury to stop the bleeding.

“You are okay, Patrick,” Pete promises only what he wants to believe in.

“No…” Patrick’s ribcage is heaving as he tries to take a deep breath, but it seems that even the air hurts his lungs. “What if I d-die, Pete?”

Waiting for the answer, the teen fails keeping his eyelids open.

“No, you don’t! Hey, Patrick, buddy, look at me, please, please, you have to stay awake, hey, can you hear me?! Patrick, you can do it, just stay awake, I’m begging you!”

Patrick opens his eyes obediently, but it takes all of his strength as the boy lets out a painful sob, licking his dry and chapped lips.

“S-sorry, I c-can’t…”

Sitting on the cold ground and hugging Patrick’s motionless body, Pete whispers some comforting things, even if his friend can’t hear his voice anymore; almost inaudible sounds of Patrick’s harsh breathing give him a hope that it’s not their last night. 

Now these social workers have a good reason to take Patrick back into the orphanage; Pete wants to punch himself in the face as his brain adds ‘in case if the boy can survive’. God, Patrick definitely can do it, even if now he goes limp on Pete’s arms, completely unconscious and frighteningly white, bleeding out onto Pete’s hoodie. The only good thing is that now Patrick can’t see all this blood. Pete hates himself, he’s horrified by the thought that those words were Patrick’s last words. No. They can handle it.

Pete doesn’t want to take a step away when the police and paramedics arrive and check Patrick’s unsteady pulse. They ask Pete about the details, he can’t say a word and just stares blankly as two men put Patrick onto the stretcher, the boy looks so tiny and lifeless, only the faint movements of his chest signal that Patrick is still here. Pete climbs into the ambulance car along with paramedics (what the fuck — they don’t believe he was driving that damned car just because he looks much better than Patrick), holding an icepack against his forehead and seeing terribly white Patrick with an oxygen mask on his face, smeared blood on it. The boy blinks his eyes open for a second, but immediately closes them again.

It’s too early to say goodbye.

 

***

Someone shakes Pete’s shoulder, and he jerks awake without having a clue what’s going on. Then, Pete slowly recognizes a man in a white coat with the nametag ‘Hoppus’, remembers that he nearly killed Patrick a few hours ago and feels like he’s gonna throw up on the floor in the waiting room.

“Mr. Wentz?” the Doctor looks into Pete’s eyes, he isn’t sure if there will be a good or bad conversation.

“Oh, yeah,” he rubs his bruised knuckles, unable to ask what he wants to know the most. He is so fucked up that he even can’t call his parents. The Doctor reads his minds.

“He’s alive. This boy is a lucky one, really, we’re amazed by it, he was on the passenger seat, wasn’t he? According to your car and the collision force, in around 80% of accidents like this…”

“His state at the moment?” Pete sounds rudely, interrupting the Doctor’s lecture.

“He’s in stable condition. Head injury. Concussion. Serious one, I’m not sure if he will be able to remember any moments from the last night, and he lost some blood, but, as I said, we’re amazed. Patient is gonna be okay. One of the nurses cried when she saw his bruises, two ribs are cracked, but… He has a good Guardian Angel.”

“He complained he couldn’t feel his right arm,” Pete shivers.

“Dislocated shoulder. Sometimes, in shocking situation it causes a slight partial paralysis. At first I thought it’s broken, but the collarbone wasn’t swollen like it supposed to be in these cases, and…” the Doctor trails off as Pete gives him a horrified glance. “I fixed it. He will feel his arms and legs. And yes — he will able to walk if you can’t find the courage to ask about it.”

“Can I see him?” Pete is about to beg, only to make sure it’s true.

“He’s still unconscious. The nurse bandaged him, I gave him painkillers, the boy needs to rest, and you too,” Dr. Hoppus says firmly.

Pete craves to get into Patrick’s hospital ward, his heart burns with impatience.

“I’m his guardian, I’m responsible for this kid’s life, he means every-fucking-thing for me!” Pete’s unable to keep his voice calm, standing in the white clean hallway and stepping away as the nurse with a paper folder hurries out of the office.

“Mr. Wentz…”

“Please?”

“Well... Potentially, you are my patient too. Follow me,” the Doctor waves his hand, and Pete almost runs to the door, he wants to open it so badly, but he’s so scared that he barely can think.

Struggling with his cowardice, Pete enters the hospital ward.

Patrick is small and quiet.

He’s as white as the bedsheets on his hospital bed. The bruises on the crooks of his elbows from the IV’s and injections look too violent — like a constellation of tiny red dots from the tips of the needles on the space of damaged black-blue skin. There is a white bandage, wrapped around Patrick’s head, covering that deep cut right above his temple. Probably, the blood is still leaking, the bandage is red-stained. Teen’s reddish hair looks scruffy and unfamiliar without beanie. Pete takes Patrick’s weak hand, warm and dry, Patrick is so, so pale and calm that Pete feels these miserable tears again, but he can’t cry — Patrick wouldn’t like it. As much as Patrick wouldn’t like that hospital gown he’s dressed in, instead of his dirty clothes.

If Pete had turned the steering wheel a second earlier, both of them would be unharmed. If Patrick hadn’t turned that damned wheel a second later, both of them would be dead.

That’s the reality of life.

“I’m an asshole, Trick. I’m not sure if you can hear me, but I’m sorry. I love you, Trick, you hate it, but that’s who I am, I can’t lie, Patrick, you are the brightest thing in my life, you are.”

Pete keeps whispering apologies and confessions, and when someone mumbles ‘nice’, Pete jumps up on the chair and looks around, searching for the person who’s talking.

“Wanna imp… impress m-me?”

Patrick’s eyes glued shut as he speaks, but at least his thinking process seems to be fine.

He moans as the rays of a daylight hit through his reddened eyelids, forcing him to blink, and these dark circles around his eyes are so contrast in compare to his porcelain skin. Pete feels happy and incredible sad at the same time, he’s about to scream DUDE I KNEW YOU WERE OKAY, but he just shakes his pretty bad aching head. Pete got just a small bump on his forehead and a couple of scrapes on his arms, and Patrick almost got a skull fracture along with his cracked ribs.

“Man, I’m gonna call the doctor, or the nurse, you’re gonna be okay, I promise!” Pete holds Patrick’s hand, and the teen tangles their fingers together.

“It’s blood on your clothes, Pete. _My blood_ , drops of my fucking life, you know. I ruined everything, and all the promises are not working, it’s all fucking ended,” Patrick starts with whispering, but his voice grows louder and louder; he raises his hand and touches the bandages. “Shit, no, NO!”

Patrick’s fingertips are red and wet as the blood oozes through the white line of the bandage. Terrified, Patrick tosses as a demented patient, pressing his face to the pillow; Pete wants to hold him still, because the teen only hurts himself more, and the pillowcase is already stained in crimson spots. Pete hears only Patrick’s dry sobbing, without a hint of tears, the worst kind of hysteria.

“Sh, Patrick, it’s gonna be okay,” Pete thinks frantically where is the button he has to press to call the nurse.

“NO IT’S NOT!! You said you can save me, so why the fuck you lied to me?!”

Grabbing teen’s injured shoulder and getting a small surprised gasp in response, Pete opens his mouth to apologize as the door of the ward almost flies into the wall, and Dr. Hoppus hurries to them with a syringe clamped between his fingers. The man pushes Pete past him as he pins Patrick’s back to the bed; the Doctor injects the needle into Patrick’s bruised vein — the boy glares at him, and then his eyelids suddenly drop shut.

“He’s afraid of blood,” Pete explains darkly.

Instead of answering, Dr. Hoppus stares at sleeping Patrick and carefully inspects teen’s injured head, touching blood-soaked bandage.

“I take care of it,” he concludes. “Can you bring him some normal clothes? Take a taxi, go home, he’s out anyway.”

Pete suspects the Doctor offers this only for distraction, but yes, he can do it.

 

***

When Patrick wakes up, he doesn’t know his name. He blinks a few times as his eyesight plays tricks at him, but someone squeezes his hand, and the teen lets out a sigh of relief. He guesses it’s the middle of the day, and Patrick doesn’t even understand why the hell he’s thinking about the time; he really feels better after his ‘nap’— a little nauseous, but at least he can’t feel that nagging pain in his ribs and head.

“Hey,” Pete sounds as guilty as his smile looks, and some fragments from the last night come back to Patrick’s brain, now he is ashamed of his screaming. “I’m sorry. I understand, you hate me now, but Patrick…”

Oh, finally, his name is Patrick, that’s nice.

“Shut up,” he hisses out, and Pete presses his lips into a thin line. “I’m sorry too. I just couldn’t control myself, Pete. I don’t want to go back to the orphanage…”

“You don’t have to! Those bitches were hurting you more than me. You have something to tell about your past, right?”

Patrick grins crookedly.

“No one believes me. Troubled teens deserve the punishment, that’s the rule of that place,” he stretches his hands, clenching and unclenching fists as the senses attack his body, reminding him that he is not just lying on the hospital bed.

“You are the most innocent person I’ve ever seen,” Pete’s hand placed on Patrick’s bruised chest, the boy feels pleasant warmth, sneaking into his bones, and the pain becomes much more tolerant to him.

“Oh, you’re telling me!” Patrick bites his lips and then smiles; he wants to sit up, and Pete wraps his arms around Patrick’s shoulders, helping him. Patrick gasps, clutching his side, and decides he prefers not to move.

This day goes pretty nice, Patrick is just an angel during the procedures; he takes the pills obediently, shakes Doctor’s hand and even tries to flirt with the nurses. He should be grateful, because the nurse who visits him is pretty sexy, with cute hairstyle and strange last name, she’s no older than twenty. When this young girl asks Patrick about his name just to make sure he remembers it, he answers gloomily ‘David Bowie, but you can call me just Patrick’.

The nurse laughs and kisses his cheek, leaving a light smear of lipstick on his jaw.

Patrick blushes.

Pete facepalms.

When Patrick feels good enough to move without the urge to cry, he orders Pete to turn away as he changes the hospital gown on loose t-shirt and pajama pants. His bandaged torso hurts more than the rest of his body, but in his usual clothes being hospitalized doesn’t seem so scary anymore. Pete calls in sick, he’s allowed to be in Patrick’s ward, because it has a free bed, so he can even sleep there — he was in that car crash, he’s injured as well.

Patrick can’t stand the loneliness.

It’s simple — if Patrick makes friends, he has more chances to turn his hectic life the way he wants, at the moment, he wants just to stay with Pete. Car accident wasn’t Pete’s fault, the teen hopes that Pete’s father can help them to prove that, because Patrick hadn’t enjoyed being beaten up for every wrong step in the orphanage. He’s sure those people will kill him now and just say that it was a suicide.

Patrick is not suicidal.

Patrick just wants to stay safe.

Hideous details of the crash got stuck in his memory, but no one asks him about it not to violate his fragile piece of mind. But Patrick remembers Pete’s blank face, the sound of rasping metal and bullets of ache in his chest and left side as he tried to avoid the catastrophe. Remembers the thud of his head hitting against the cracked windshield and then, harder, against the instrument panel, static noises in his ears and hot spikes of pain in his temple and neck. Then, finally, his brain disconnected him from this nightmare. Though, Patrick doesn’t remember the fear; probably he was too scared to recognize it.

When it’s dark beyond the window of the hospital ward, Dr. Hoppus comes to Patrick again and informs that tomorrow there’ll be some people from the Social Service who wants to talk to Patrick about his _future._

Patrick pretends it doesn’t hurt.

 

***

Social workers are Satan’s helpers; Patrick hates their hollow words and promises. This morning, during the re-bandaging, he saw some bloody cottonwool in nurse’s hands and got sick straight into an empty bowl on the table beside his bed. This incident pretty much spoiled Patrick’s mood for the rest of the day. His head is throbbing, and his skin is itchy under the bandages; Patrick gets his regular dose of the painkillers, but he’s not sure if he can really keep the pills down. When perfectly dressed smiley lady enters his hospital ward, he tastes stomach acid in his mouth again. Probably, this woman is too cold to be a defender of children in need, she looks too stylish and even beautiful — Patrick starts thinking she’s a fake.

“Hey, sweetie,” social worker greets him as she sets a paper bag onto the nightstand. Patrick’s sensitive nose catches the smell of the oranges. “The Doctor said you feel better?”

“I’m allergic to oranges, are you trying to kill me?” Patrick crosses his arms over his chest, his right shoulder pulsates with the mild pain in response. The lady puts the bag with oranges under Patrick’s bed. The boy just rolls his eyes.

“I’m Ms. Simpson, I want to help you, according to our social program,” the woman rummages in her huge bag and fishes out a paper folder. “I want to ask you some questions, and then our child psychologist will talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Oh, sweetie, about your state, of course! You are stressed after that car accident,” Ms. Simpson stretches out her hand to smooth a shaggy hair on the top of Patrick’s head, but he jerks away. Social worker looks disappointed.

While she talks about ‘how hard Patrick’s life is’, Patrick completely zones out, wishing Pete was here. He’s just outside the door, but it feels like Patrick’s guardian is a million miles away.

The teen isn’t sure that his all-the-way-hangover brain can be really functional right now, but he has to endure it all this hour.

Talking to the child psychologist is way too embarrassing. Patrick likes this guy at first, Mr. Beckett kind of looks like he doesn’t give a shit about the whole situation, and it makes Patrick smirk. Even though he barely opens his eyes when he blinks, and his bones ache like hell all over. Patrick just can’t show his weakness to these people.

“Did Pete touch you?” Mr. Beckett enquires monotonically, tucking a strand of his long brown hair behind his ear.

Patrick’s chest bursting out with anger and anxiety, his apathy replaces with indignation.

“What? No! He didn’t hit me! How could you…” he yanks up hospital blanket to cover some old scars on his legs from his _past life._

The psychologist glances at the boy interestedly.

“No, I mean like… Harassments? Sexual contacts?”

This question impales Patrick’s brain like an epee, and he starts screaming without realization of what he’s doing.

“Jesus, no! Never! I’m… Shit, I’m still a virgin, okay?!” Patrick exhales out, and his confession hangs in the air, permeated with medical supplies.

Neither social worker nor psychologist dare to speak. Patrick’s heart nearly explodes as he suspects that the Doctor will sedate him again later because of his behavior. The boy doesn’t enjoy being knocked out all the time, so he forces himself not to yell as a little girl who’d lost her favorite Teddy bear. To be honest, Patrick lost much more in his life than just a stupid plush toy.

“You got a nervous breakdown,” Mr. Beckett stares at the bandages; Patrick is terrified of the thought that the blood could soak through them again.

“I was scared.”

Patrick fidgets on the bed, the pain like a barbed wire wraps around his ribs and his numb neck; it seems like hospital ward starts spinning, and the teen has to fight against the bout of nausea, wiping his dry mouth with the back of his hand.

“Of what?” that woman starts talking again, Patrick is about to throw a pillow at her, just to make this annoying social worker shut the fuck up.

“Are you stupid? I crashed a car, got a head injury, and my eyesight is going bad — of-fucking-course there are no reasons of being scared,” Patrick gathers the remains of his cockiness, he’s pretty sure he can’t conceal the hatred in his gaze.

Ms. Simpson bites her lip and tugs up the collar of her blouse, gazing straight into Patrick’s eyes.

“Sweetie…”

“Don’t call me that,” Patrick cuts her off with a dark self-satisfaction. “Your theory is something like ‘Bastard Wentz raped this poor boy and then tried to kill him in that car accident’. Really?”

“No, kid, relax. That’s just our job,” Mr. Beckett shrugs, giving Patrick a half-smile.

Patrick groans, pressing his palms to his ears, all the sounds of dumb reality make his head hurt so bad, that Patrick decides that being drugged all the time wasn’t that terrible.

“I’m tired. Everything hurts, I’m not lying! Can we talk when I get out of the hospital?” he pleads weakly.

“Yes, of course. Get some sleep,” child psychologist gets up from the chair, but Ms. Simpson isn’t going to give up easily.

“No, we have to solve this problem as soon as possible, we have to decide where you will stay after your recovery,” she insists, and Patrick can swear she glares at them.

“You all are sadists. You say you want a better life for me, but you don’t even let me rest and get off of me when I’m almost begging you,” Patrick bitterly states the fact. “So, my decision is: I stay with Pete no matter what,” the teen’s tone brooks no objections.

“Pete almost killed you both,” the woman starts her speech again.

“He saved my life.”

Patrick shudders as Dr. Hoppus pushes the door open and walks inside the room without knocking or greeting; the teen feels almost safe, and then he feels completely safe as he notices Pete with a worried smile on his face.

“Visiting hours are over,” the Doctor informs, waving his hand at the open door.

“Have you found any signs of rape?” Ms. Simpson blurts out, and Patrick just feels his cheeks turn bright-red. Fucking perfect.

The psychologist rolls his eyes.

“Ash, don’t start a scene. This kid said he’s a virgin, so don’t grip onto this topic, please.”

Patrick thought he can’t be even redder. Oh, he was wrong.

“This boy is brainwashed!” Ms. Simpson persuades, and Patrick gets horribly bored.

“He’s just concussed. Goodbye, and please, do me a favor — don’t bother my patient anymore,” Dr. Hoppus winks at Patrick when social worker and Mr. Beckett leave the ward, taking that paper bag with oranges.

Pete obviously doesn’t understand why the hell everyone is so interested in Patrick’s private life; older guy sits down onto his friend’s bed, and Patrick leans to his shoulder, wincing a little when Pete hugs him.

 

***

They just talk for a while; Patrick nervously clings to Pete, whispering he doesn’t want to get back to his past life. Older guy enjoys the way Patrick wrinkles his nose as he giggles at Pete’s dorky jokes, and the tension in his muscles finally fades away.

Patrick even starts singing something under his breath.

“Sorry, but what did you say about your… m-m, virginity? Was it a trick?” Pete ruffles Patrick’s hair, trying not to move the bandage and not to draw Patrick’s attention to a small red spot blossoming on it.

The teen frowns at Pete’s sudden question.

“Dude, I’m just fifteen, and I’ve never touched boobs. How do you think?” Patrick mutters, staring at his fingers with bitten nails. Pete thinks he has to wean him off this habit.

“I can help you to find a girlfriend, if you want,” Pete shrugs.

“Thank you very much, Pete. I can’t even make it to the restroom on my own, yes, I definitely need a girlfriend,” Patrick chuckles, lazily smacking his fist against Pete’s side.

“I mean, later…” Pete murmurs into the boy’s ear, realizing that Patrick just scoffs.

Really, Pete guesses he knows this guy pretty well. Patrick always asks to guide him to the restroom, around the corner in the hallway, because he promptly gets dizzy as he stands up, and when Pete offers to carry him, Patrick resents he’s perfectly fine and can walk. So, Pete just hangs around while Patrick is in the stall, and then they toddle back to the hospital ward together — Pete gets his hand slapped each time when he tries to hold Patrick up as the boy loses the balance.

Now, Patrick insensibly falls asleep in Pete’s arms, mouth a little open as the kid snorts a little; Pete strokes Patrick’s unwashed hair, thinking of when the boy will be allowed to take a shower. It’s just 5 p.m. but Pete starts dozing off by the time when the nurse disturbs their idyll.

Pete takes a quick look at her — she’s cute even without make-up, with a weird hairstyle under her nurse cap; Pete’s pretty sure she dyed her strands green a while ago, and now the colour is almost washed off. Patrick said her last name is something like Frangipane, ne wasn’t sure if he pronounced it right.

“Cute,” the girl smiles, bringing up a syringe she holds in her hand. “It’s time for the injection, guys.”

“Oh, hey,” Pete jumps up on the bed, but the boy is completely out of it, he doesn’t wake up. “I gotta go…”

He doesn’t let Pete stay in the ward during his procedures, but now Patrick passed out, and he doesn’t care, anyway. If this nurse wants to take off Patrick’s pants to give him an injection, Pete doesn’t want to be the witness /just because he wants to bury himself alive for wanting, actually/. 

“Stay, I just need his hand,” she says as she bends over the bed.

Pete watches wordlessly as the girl disinfects the spot on the crook of Patrick’s elbow and carefully sinks the needle in. Patrick doesn’t stir. Teen’s hands look pretty much like he’s a drug-addicted person. The nurse just rubs her thumb over the shapeless bruise.

“Doesn’t look good,” Pete utters thoughtfully, pressing the cottonwool to Patrick’s soft skin after the injection.

“It was hard to find his vein at first,” the nurse explains guiltily. “It’s my second month of medical practice here, when Patrick was brought here, I cried and couldn’t be competent.”

“But he’s doing great, isn’t he?” Pete says proudly, and Patrick sleepily sighs in response.

“His head is healing pretty fast. I’m gonna re-bandage him tomorrow, I’m just gonna ask him not to look,” she lets out a small laughter.

“When I can take him home?”

“In Monday, I guess… Just shhh, you have to talk to Dr. Hoppus about it,” the nurse looks at the wall clock. “Oh, 5:15, my shift is over… Bye!”

Alone with Patrick, Pete has the strong sense that there is a some bond between them; Patrick snorts and rolls off Pete’s lap, pressing his nose to the pillow. Probably, at Monday they will be home. It’s just two days of waiting.

 

***

Patrick gets used to all this hospital routine: ‘how do you feel?’ every second, Pete’s worried glances as Patrick stumbles on his own shoes, regular pills and injections. He’s tired of it, the boy wants to be home, on his bed, watching TV or cuddling with Pete without a fear of being caught by the Doctor or nurse.

He doesn’t want to continue that pointless war with social workers, he just wants to live.

When Pete literally hauls him out for a walk, Patrick stubbornly sits on the bench in the garden near the hospital without any desire to move, pulling on his new black beanie Pete presented him this morning to cover the bandages. Patrick doesn’t like what he sees in the mirror, he’s still pale and bruised all over, and the boy just sighs when Pete carefully throws his hand over his shoulders. The thorns of pain cling to Patrick’s neck and right arm, but he bravely endures Pete’s sudden firework of tenderness.

“You’re beautiful,” Pete whispers, his lips slightly touch a strand of hair above Patrick’s ear.

“Yeah, of course,” Patrick mutters sarcastically, registering a silhouettes at the end of the pavement and squinting — his eyesight has gotten worse after the car accident. “Troh? And… Oh, you’re Andy?”

“Hey, Stump!”

“Hello, Patrick!”

Then there is a time for handshaking, hugging, hissing of ‘Jesus, my ribs!’ as Patrick can’t bite his stupid tongue again, Pete’s muffled laugh, and the avalanche of weird compliments from Joe.

“You don’t look like you’ve got a hit by the truck. But, MOTHERFUCKER STUMP, WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T YOU CALL?” Joe can afford himself this tragic yelp.

“Sorry?” Patrick looks at Pete guiltily, searching for his explanations.

“Yes, I accept it,” Joe snorts, breathing out a puff of cold air. “Pete called me this morning. Andy drove me here.”

Andy is a strong and calm guy in glasses, kind of redhead, his presence delivers comfort to Patrick’s anxious existence.

“How are you?” Andy inspects him with medical professionalism; Patrick lifts up the brim of his knit hat to show the bandages, fresh and finally white without any bloody spots on it.

Joe wordlessly pulls his friend into a tight hug, squeezing the oxygen out of his lungs and sending tiny electroshocks of pain into his cracked ribs.

“Better,” Patrick exhales faintly as Joe finally stops putting a pressure on his limbs.

“He saved my fucking life, dudes,” Pete slowly rubs circles on Patrick’s back; the teen chews his lips not to groan, but Pete grabs him by the shoulders and presses to his chest. Patrick’s bones hurt.

“Please, let’s just talk?”  Patrick whines in a low voice. “I’d like to cuddle with you all, but…” he trails off. He has to behave like a man, but whatever. Everything still hurts.

Reluctantly, Pete takes his hands off of Patrick.

“Oh. Of course, yes,” Andy immediately pulls backwards without even touching injured boy. Joe flops down onto the bench between Pete and Patrick, like he protects his childhood-friend.

Joe babbles something about the classes Patrick missed while he’d been hospitalized, and promises that he will report him all the gossips along with exercises for homework. In between Joe’s vows of eternal friendship, Pete claps his hands to draw Patrick’s attention like they’re in the kindergarten, and Patrick is a baby with developmental delay. It’s annoying.

“My parents want to meet us,” Pete informs, and Patrick can’t gulp down a hot lump of panic, rising up in his throat.

“What? When?!” the teen screams while Joe and Andy exchange puzzled glances.

“Tomorrow,” Pete shrugs. “Tomorrow we’re out of the hospital, remember?”

Unfortunately, he remembers. Another ‘how do you feel?’ from the Doctor and another ‘stay safe’ from Ashley — the nurse with different hair colours. CAT scan and a bunch of pills for good measure. Patrick could be happy that the wound on his head wasn’t so dangerous, and it did not require stitches.

“Oh,” Patrick clutches the sides of his scull as the post-concussion ache returns in full splendor.

That’s what he was afraid of. Pete’s parents, of course, they are a sweet married couple, but what do they really think about Patrick? Orphan. Troublemaker. Deadweight on Pete’s shoulder.

“I finally told them _everything_ — they are terrified, honestly. I said you saved me,” Pete adds; Patrick bites his fingers until Pete pulls his hand away from his mouth.

“Jesus. I feel ill,” Patrick confesses shamefacedly. “I’m nervous.”

Yes, he’s worried by financial and moral damage he caused to Wentz’s family. Yes, Pete was on the driver’s seat, but driving through the night was Patrick’s crazy idea; luckily, Pete’s car was insured, now he can get some money back. Not a big solace. Patrick can’t focus on things around him and covers his face with his palms, battling with dizziness and mentally gripping to the real world.

“Calm down, Trick,” Pete pushes Joe off the bench, sliding closer to Patrick.

“It will be a nice meeting,” Andy instantly takes Pete’s side.

Patrick uncertainly lowers his hands off his face, struggling to take a deep breath. He has to focus. Pete isn’t going to leave him alone as a broken toy.  _Focus on it_.

“You are part of their family now,” Joe runs his fingers through a mop of his growing up brown curls. “I was nervous as fuck when my _parents_ chose me, but then…”

“I’m glad about such a nice story in your biography, but Pete is just my guardian,” Patrick sulks, shoving his finger into the hole on a knee of his old jeans.

“It’s cool anyway,” Andy smiles at him, and Patrick huffs in response.

“Don’t worry. You’re adorable,” Pete lands his hands everywhere on Patrick’s body again; Patrick convinces himself that he’s too adult to cry in pain in front of his friends, so he just clenches his teeth, sniffing. “My parents can’t wait to see you and kick my ass for getting you into problems.”

“Believe him,” Joe adds, making a funny face.

“Okay,” Patrick sighs.

 

***

Before Patrick buttons up his blue denim jacket, Ashley kisses his cheek again. Patrick wrinkles his nose and chuckles as the strand of her light-light pink hair tickles his neck.

“Ms. Frangipane, stop flirting with patient,” Dr. Hoppus scolds her good-naturedly, barely covering his smile with his hand.

“I don’t mind, honestly,” Patrick shrugs, glaring at Pete when the older guy doesn’t let him take his bag with clothes. “She’s like a fairy.”

Bingo! This time Patrick really did something to make a girl blush.

“Thanks…” she stutters, adjusting her nurse cap nervously.

“Dude, that blow was harder than I thought,” Pete smirks, standing near the door of a hospital ward and waiting for Patrick.

One strange surmise hides at the back of Patrick’s still drugged mind, and Patrick can’t even find the guts to admit it: for some reason, Pete doesn’t like when Patrick talks about random girls. And, apparently, he doesn’t like when Patrick calls them fairies.

“Hurry up,” Pete yanks his sleeve, dragging him out of the whirlpool of his thoughts.

“Yeah,” Patrick shakes his head /and regrets about it/.

He can’t bear the fact that he’s about to meet Pete’s Dad and Mom — they will drive them back to Pete’s apartment, and they will definitely ask him the same old questions. Shit. Patrick doesn’t want to hear lamentations like ‘he could have died like his parents’ and ‘worse luck’, but he’s ready for it, actually.

There is no Plan B.

When he _really_ meets Wentz’s family, he only mumbles ‘Hi… I’m P-patrick’, and that’s all.

Pete’s mother rushes to him like a comet, and Patrick almost freezes, paralyzed by irrational fear she can hug him with all this force. So, not very manly, Patrick tries to block her intentions, protecting his traitorously cracked ribs with both his hands.

“Oh, dear, I’m sorry…” Dale just stands an inch away and slightly rubs his good shoulder. “How do you feel?”

Thousandth time. Guinness record.

Patrick almost fails attempts to wipe that painful grimace off his face as Pete’s father shakes his hand, visibly interested in answer.

“I’m fine? Mostly?” the boy replies shyly.

“Pete told us about your injuries,” Pete Wentz Sr. frowns.

“Okay. But _I’m fine_ ,” Patrick snorts stubbornly.

Again, he just can’t rant that his bruised ribs don’t let him take a deep breath properly, setting his ribcage on fire, and he still feels sick due to a serious concussion and those pills along with injections.

When Pete Jr. helps him to get inside his parents’ car, Patrick slaps his guardian’s hand and sprawls across the leather on the backseat, but then Pete pushes him closer to the window. Patrick is grateful still hasn’t got an amaxophobia. Thank you, nervous system of Patrick Stump. 

“Welcome to the Wentz-family, kid,” Pete’s father greets, starting the engine and driving the car away from the hospital.

By the time they arrive in Pete’s apartment, Patrick puts all of his charms on Wentz-couple, discussing with the older Wentz about classic rock and sharing cooking recipes with Dale.

Pete’s father swears he wants to adopt Patrick.

Pete’s mother asks what colours Patrick would prefer for his Christmas jumper she’s planning to knit.

Pete’s smile is brighter than car’s headlights.

The older Wentzes stay here only for a night. Dale disinfects the injury on Patrick’s head, helps to clean the apartment and even that legendary stain on the carpet while Pete-father talks to someone on the phone. Patrick hears the words ‘orphanage’, ‘social program’, ‘guardianship’, and goes to his room.

All of them are so busy with problems Patrick can’t help to solve (‘no, Patrick, go and lie down, you’re concussed’ and ‘don’t worry, kid, you are staying with us no matter what the cost’). He is on the stage of procrastinating with cat-videos on the YouTube.

He finds it funny even.

When someone giggles behind his back, the teen blushes and closes his laptop.

“Do you like cats?” Pete asks, a little smirk plays on his lips.

“Um, yes… But I’m allergic, you know, so dogs are better for me,” Patrick rolls onto his back, staring at the shadows on the ceiling blankly.

“Mom and Dad want to watch a movie, are you going?” Pete pokes teen’s side gingerly; his torso is still bandaged under his t-shirt.

“Yeah, I’m good, let’s go” Patrick responds, admitting that his mood gets much better.

They sit together on the couch, a family Patrick perfectly fits in; Pete has younger sister and younger brother — they can come only for Christmas — Patrick is too tired to be nervous about it. Resting his head on Pete’s shoulder, the teen falls asleep during the first half of ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’.

He hears men’s muffled voices, feels woman’s warm hand strokes his still unwashed hair, and Patrick smiles in his peaceful sleep for the first time since he was eight-year-old.

 

***

But nights without Pete’s parents in the apartment send anxious signals all over Patrick’s a little less concussed brain. Finally, the teen’s skin and hair smell like shower gel and shampoo, not like sweat and medicines; the ache in his ribs slowly fades away, and there are no more annoying and itchy bandages on his head.

Tick-tock. Even the clock ticking on the wall is too loud.

The boy is wide awake, he lies on his stomach, unsure what to do to make himself to fall asleep and get some rest. He’s not in the mood to shove his hand down his pajama pants and get rid of stress, he doesn’t want to watch some movie, and he doesn’t want anything except for snuggling with Pete.

Patrick gives up. He grabs his pillow and enters the living room on wobbly legs, catching his friend’s blurry silhouette, lying on the couch with a laptop on his chest.

“Hey,” the teen starts, covering the dinosaur-print on his t-shirt with the pillow.

“Hey,” Pete puts the laptop aside and shifts a little to give Patrick some space beside him. “Why don’t you sleep? The Doctor said…”

“I miss my parents,” Patrick interrupts him, placing a pillow under his head. “But I love your Mom and Dad.”

“Dude, they love you too!” Pete reassures, wrapping his arm around Patrick’s shoulders; for the first time this week, it doesn’t cause a stabbing pain all over Patrick’s body, even without bandages. “Wanna talk?”

“Yes, can we?” Patrick squints to catch Pete’s face expression. Shit, now he needs glasses, without any doubts.

“Sure,” Pete agrees carelessly.

“Do you have a boyfriend, Pete?”

Patrick wants to bite off his curious tongue at how dryly this question sounds. There’s an ocean of love splashes across Patrick’s chest, it doesn’t let him breathe, maybe, it’s just his anxiety. Patrick is just an orphan till the end of his life, he has only one friend in school, and he has _Pete_ who likes guys. Amazing. Patrick would like to say he likes guys too, but, to be honest, the only guy he loves is Pete; maybe, because Pete sort of saved his life or maybe it’s Patrick’s fate.

Like they are soulmates.

Unholy alliance.

“Well… Trick, it’s not all so simple, and I’d like to explain…” Pete looks like a confused parent who doesn’t know what to answer on his kid’s ‘where the babies come from?’ “No, Trick. I’m single.”

Patrick knows where the babies come from, thank you very much. He’s distracted — Pete is shirtless. There are nice thorns tattooed around his neck, hm.

“I’ve never kissed anyone,” the teen confesses, tangling his finger in Pete’s dark bangs.

“You are a little liar, you’re making out with girls in locker-rooms,” Pete laughs bitterly, suddenly trying to shove Patrick away. It’s like one of Pete’s thorns stabs his loving teenage heart.

“It wasn’t a real kiss,” Patrick grumbles. “Teach me?”

He has no clue what he’s doing. Worth to try. 

“What? Dude, are you crazy? I don’t want to get arrested for a corruption of minors,” Pete’s attempts to push Patrick off the couch become more intensive.

“How do they know?” Patrick stubbornly clings to his friend’s bare torso, throwing his leg over Pete’s hip to keep himself from falling on the floor.

The deep shadow of blush on Pete’s tanned skin is noticeable even in the dim room, even with Patrick’s poor eyesight.

“Shit, Patrick, don’t tell me you’re hard,” Pete moans helplessly. “Go to bathroom, I don’t know, watch some porn, just stop pressing!”

“Why? It feels good,” the teen doesn’t move not to frighten away that fragile pleasure below his waist.

“Um, let me think? You’re fucking _fifteen_ , Trick, you’re concussed, and I can’t even lay a finger on you without causing a pain!”

“Just kiss me, and let’s call it quits.”

“Hey, where’s that boy who forgot his own name, talking to my Dad?” Pete teases, tickling Patrick’s stomach.

“He grew up.”

That’s the culmination of their dialogue, because Patrick’s soft tongue licks off the moan from Pete’s open mouth. The teen likes it, gripping Pete’s shoulders as their bodies finally slam together; pain in blossoming bruises mixes with excitement, Patrick’s teeth sink into Pete’s bottom lip, and second later Pete slightly bites him back. It’s hot, Patrick’s flurried blood boils up, rushing through his veins, he doesn’t pay much attention when Pete’s fingers stop on that almost healed cut above temple.

And then Pete kisses him.

Patrick crawls on top of his friend, keeping their lips smashed together; Pete moves his hands gently not to hurt Patrick and not to roll him out of the sofa.

“Pete, I love you,” Patrick whispers exhaustedly as he finally breaks the kiss.

“Love you too, Trick,” Pete wheezes, letting Patrick nuzzle against his jaw.

The silence seems peaceful and soothing, Patrick floats in the sea of sweet emotions without any desire to come up to the surface. Even his tongue seems groggy when Patrick wants to utter his friend’s name.

“Pete?”

“M?”

“Can I sleep here tonight?”

“Of course.”       

 

***

Next day, when Pete gets home from work (it was his first shift after Patrick’s hospitalization. Gerard, Pete’s boss, and Mikey were scared shitless), there’s the smell of gingersnaps cooking spreads all over the apartment, like it is a little baking factory.

Pete smiles to himself as he leaves his shoes in the hallway and silently goes to the kitchen, the only thought in his mind is: ‘my Trick is back’.

Near the stove, Patrick dances with his headphones on, connected to the cellphone in his pocket. He dances to Michael Jackson, Pete can tell, according to Patrick’s diligent attempts to repeat his famous moonwalk. He’s doing great, by the way. Definitely, Patrick wasn’t born a dancer, but the way he rocks his hips, snapping his fingers to the beat, is just hypnotizing.

“Cause this is thriller, thriller night,” Patrick indistinctly sings under his breath, sliding on his socks on the linoleum while Pete stands in the doorframe and watches him.

There are plates with hot and appetizing cookies on the table along with a big bowl full of cookie dough, and snowflakes of the flour all over the kitchen. Patrick’s good mood fills up the air as the teen makes that dance from classic music video.

“You know it’s thriller, thriller NIGHT! Oh, hey!” Patrick is about to hit that high note when he finally notices his lonely viewer. The teen tugs his headphones down to his neck and cheerfully waves his hand in greeting.

“Hello, Trick,” Pete easily adopts Patrick’s habit — he chews his lips, knowing what he’s supposed to do.

Patrick just makes one single step forward.

He quickly grabs Patrick by the collar of his t-shirt and kisses him hard, pinning him against the side of the fridge.

“Pete, I’m still fifteen,” Patrick smirks into Pete’s lips, his pupils dilate as Pete carefully palms the front of his jeans.

“Yeah, indeed,” Pete agrees, his hand slides up to Patrick’s waist.

“Pete,” Patrick breathes out worriedly.

“Mhm?” Pete’s too busy to pronounce something logical; he thinks he accidentally sucked a mark on Patrick’s pale neck, right on that spot where small blue vein pulsates. Pete grips boy’s beanie, pulling it off his head — what a stupid fashion. Less clothes at home. Fuck, this kid smells like ginger and Pete’s Old Spice, and Pete just rubs his back and sides, unable to get enough of this boy.

Officially green light.

Music still plays from the headphones against Patrick’s collarbones, Thriller, second verse.

“Pete,” Patrick tries again, tilting his head away from Pete’s mouth. “Fuck. WENTZ!!”

Reality hits Pete’s ears, and the older guy starts pouring apologies non-stop.

“Patrick, I’m sorry, shit, your ribs, I forgot!” he’s about to go and grab ice from the fridge, they’re making out nearby, but Patrick just takes his hat and huffs.

“Calm down. Cookies are burning,” and the teen hurries closer to the oven, grabbing a kitchen glove from the chair.

Pete watches him adoringly.

This evening they spend in Patrick’s messy room, on Patrick’s bed, eating ginger cookies (that last batch got burnt a little), watching good old ‘Friends’ online and laughing. Patrick is going to get back to school tomorrow, so he probably needs to get some rest. Pete is completely in love with Patrick’s specific superpower of falling asleep within few seconds — in the middle of the episode Patrick just passes out, curling into a ball against Pete’s side, leaving him to watch the season in loneliness.

 

***

“Merry Christmas, my little allergic,” Pete beams, flopping down onto the sagging sofa where Patrick sits with the limited-edition comics in his hands — a present from Andy, of course. By the way, Patrick is not a big fan of the universe of superheroes, except for Batman, but he looks very interested, and these glasses on his nose make this focused teen even more adorable.

“Merry Christmas, Pete,” ignoring the word ‘allergic’, Patrick tucks the comics between the cushion and armrest.

“Santa has a gift for you,” the older guy places his hands on Patrick’s knees, curled against his chest.

The boy scratches the back of his head through that knit hat he’s still wearing. Okay, it’s not a stupid habit as Pete thought at first — it’s Patrick’s personal style, it clings to Pete’s soul and crawls into his heart like a tiny warm sparkles.

They have only a couple of hours before Pete’s family arrives — the apartment smells like cherry pies, it’s Christmas tree in the corner of the living room, near the bass and synthesizer, there are paper snowflakes on the windows and garlands on the ceiling.

Patrick loves Christmas since he was a little kid. He said, he remembers only the good years with his parents, he doesn’t want to keep in his memory those ‘celebrations’ in the orphanage. Pete is not a Santa, and he isn’t going to pretend being an Elf, so he and Patrick are just waiting for another miracle, for something special and wonderful like they’re little kids.

Patrick shifts on the couch nervously.

“Really? I thought it’s too early for gifts, anyway, I didn’t have a time to wrap my gift for you into that paper with stars, oh, am I talking too much?”

Pete doesn’t let him finish.

“Hemmy!” he calls out.

“Who?” Patrick’s eyes go wide, he looks more than just surprised.

“Hemmy, come here, man!” Pete claps his hands.

After a few seconds small white puppy with the dark spot over his eye runs out of the hallway, jumps on the couch, onto Patrick’s arms, and starts licking teen’s face, neck and palms.

“Hey! Hey,” Patrick laughs, hugging the dog with enthusiasm. “Is he a gift for me?”

The dog with a sonorous yelp licks the lenses of Patrick’s new glasses, Pete feels like he discovered a new planet as Hemmy makes those funny noises and nuzzles to Patrick’s chin.

“Yeah. It’s Hemingway. I took him from the shelter,” Pete explains, stroking the dog’s head. “Well, the only thing he knows is his name, so…”

They just didn’t have much time for practice.

“Nice sense of humor,” Patrick huffs jokingly. “A dude from the orphanage, a puppy from the shelter…”

“That’s who I am,” Pete grins, and probably, he has never seen Patrick so genuinely happy.

“Maybe let’s go and walk with him?” the teen offers, trying not to let Hemmy eat his comics.

Pete nods, smiling when Patrick rolls onto the floor along with Hemmy; young dog really needs more room to play, but now he likes Patrick so much that he doesn’t even want to take a step away. But suddenly Pete remembers one very important thing.

“Trick? What do you want to give me for Christmas?”

He’s 90% sure that Patrick will keep silence.

“Pete, don’t be such a baby!” still lying on the floor, Patrick replies, and Pete just makes puppy eyes, hoping it will work on his younger friend. “Okay. Iron Maiden t-shirt.”

“So cool,” Pete admits.

“Yeah. Because I’m cool,” the teen shrugs, rolling onto his side as Hemingway tries to chew his beanie.

That dude from the shelter explained that this puppy is actually an English bulldog, but Pete still isn’t sure if it’s all true information about this dog’s pedigree. The only thing he understands is: Hemmy is the best companion ever.

There are endless Christmas Holidays, family dinners, songs Patrick likes to sing, and parties with reckless Trohman. Pete’s entire existence fills up with love and peace, like he finally went out of that damned circle called ‘Worthless life of Pete Wentz’, and his universe finally collided with Patrick’s. The question is: how to call this? Friendship or ‘something more than friendship’, yes, it’s all weird, but they don’t do something gross or illegal. Pete is in love with this underage guy, who’s got through those unpleasant moments, from the orphanage to hospital, from the potential PTSD to dancing in the kitchen, and maybe, that dancing finally made everything better.

All these months, Patrick is a part of big family of Wentzes, even social workers have admitted the fact that this boy is alright while he lives with these friendly people. Patrick has a big future. They’ve done a lot of work for it. They are on the way of building their Relationship; right now — nothing more than innocent kissing, cuddling and snuggling, Patrick has a right to choose what he wants, what he likes better — guys or girls. Pete doesn’t put a pressure on him. That’s how it works.

Pete is his friend, no matter what. He’s grateful to what he’s got.

Together, they just want to watch this brand new episode of life, it’s time for changing.

Pete and Patrick will try, at least.

Until they get a better plan.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry about any grammar mistakes (english is not my 1st language), you can tell me about them!  
> \----  
> i planned it as a 5k words story, but oops, it's a bit longer.  
> well, i feel guilty, and all the bandom members deserve medals.  
> <3  
> -tj


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